Our family has had a particularly stressful few years. One afternoon my husband and two teenage daughters reflected on how the women in our family have frequently needed to process the events of our lives verbally in order to have some release. As we bantered about it, my daughters made some suggestions. “What if,” my oldest mused, “we could just turn our head to the side and let all of that emotion drain out our ears?” Then my youngest piped in with, “It would be even better if we could just throw it all up and out of us!”
How I could concur with that thought, gross though it be!
A few weeks back we examined 1 Peter 5:5b-6 as the context for a commonly memorized verse on prayer (June 9th Blog). Read it again in context: “for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
Before we can lift up any of our worries and cares to God, we must take the time to acknowledge humbly who we are and Who He is. I have been in countless prayer meetings over the years in churches where people plunged into prayer with their laundry list of needs and wants with no thought for the One to Whom they are speaking.
I have been guilty of the same. Don’t get me wrong. God wants us to come to Him with our requests and share our needs and wants with Him. That’s really what verse 7 is all about. But before we get there, we need to have an attitude that demonstrates that we are ready to submit to what He wants in our lives, regardless of whether or not the wishes on our prayer list are granted.
So…humble yourselves, then cast your cares and worries and fears and anxieties.
I love the word picture here. The word casting brings to mind a fishing rod with the line cast way out in the water or a ball being thrown so high in the air it doesn’t come down again because it resists the gravity of the Earth and flies off into space.
I’ve had times when I’ve thrown my hands up wildly before God, flinging all of my worries up to Him in exhaustion or anguish.
Other times that casting has been more of a “placing upon.” At those times I have had to hold dearly a tender situation or hurting friend or personal wound and gently place it upon my Loving Heavenly Father, trusting His care is more tender than anything I could ever conceive.
That is the power of casting upon Him a care which distracts you and draws you in a hundred different directions.
And…even better, it comes with a promise. You can be assured that He cares for You, even when you feel sick enough to throw up all that care and You wonder if He even hears You.
Be assured. He hears. He cares. And He’s already working out the answers.
On second thought, draining out or throwing up our cares is not such a crazy thought.
Apparently, God already thought that up.
