“Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you”(1 Peter 5:7 NKJV).
The verse above is something I really didn’t believe in or think applied to me. At least honestly, due to all the turmoil that just kept springing up in my life. I had loved ones being diagnosed with deadly diseases, another recovering from attempting to take his own life, great financial woes of my own weighing on me, and loved ones looking at me to solve their life problems. All these things puzzled me and made me question whether this is my life or all life has to offer – just a whole bunch of unwanted problems. Who and what could I run to? Who shall you?
We currently live in unpredictable times. The people we hold close to our hearts, the things we hold in such high esteem, the very life we all live – at times, it all feels like it can be taken away today and gone like it wasn’t here yesterday. Like some of you, when problems arise, I look to myself more than God for His saving hand and nature. What does your mind tell you when the help you seek from God doesn’t come when or how you expect it to? I highly suggest you all read Psalms 13.
I remember being at my wit’s end recently; I felt like David in Psalm 13, feeling lost, frustrated, hopeless, and weary of God. I was questioning how I could continue following someone (God) when my faith in them is gone because I’m tired of being tired. I have grown weary of waiting to see if He will save me or my loved ones with all of our discouraging trials happening simultaneously. For many of us, those moments or periods in our lives can feel overwhelming and unstable and have us discouraged and believing our most negative thoughts and ideas about our futures. I know it did for me. I remember being at the end of my rope during this period of trials, and I couldn’t sleep.
There, I lay for almost two hours trying to fall back to sleep at 2am, but my and others’ life circumstances seemed to weigh on my psyche too much to feel at peace. What was left to do, and who should go to? God!
I remembered praying and reading what I thought to be an everyday devotional, and the first few words of the statement were “Casting your cares” (1 Peter 5:7 NKJV), and it felt as if God was speaking directly to me. The age-old church quote laminated what I felt: “God may not come when we want or expect him, but He’s always on time.” The most notable thing I felt during that experience was God’s presence. I realized that He sees and cares about little old flawed me, the small and big issues in my life (Luke 12:7), and I finally gave my worries and desires to Him in exchange for his peace. I was finally able to trust God at that moment. I finally had some hope in my life again, and the burdens of others and my own fell off my shoulders.
I can understand how trusting anyone or anything other than ourselves can be scary, but I think not trusting or believing in God is even more frightening. It could be due to our flawed relationships with people we’ve interacted with on this Earth: our parents, platonic and romantic relationships, and even our very relationship with ourselves. And all the letdowns we have experienced are due to our own or others’ hands. These relationships make us see God through our flawed lens and not through the details of Him in the Bible. I, too, realized another layer to why we may have distrust and hesitancy in trusting in God is the trials we may be suffering through. They close our eyes to what God has done for us in the past, the hope we should have in God. Trust me, I’ve found myself there too many times, sadly, but just like David, God has always seemed to remind me of His glory and bring me from the pit of despair with hope in him. We may wonder if it is possible to praise or remember God come hell and high water, but David did(Psalms 13:5-6 NLT).
The devotional highlighted this:
“Casting our cares is a choice. It means consciously handing over our anxiety to
Christ and allowing Him to carry the weight of our problems. And if we are to be freed
from the burdens of our concerns, we must choose to cast them into the strong hands of our
Father“(Experiencing God day-by-day, Richard Blackaby).
I would be putting up a facade if I said I’m confident in God 24/7 and that I don’t hesitate to trust him or He’s who I go to instantaneously when issues arise. But like the age-old proverb says, “Faith walk to faith walk.” Meaning, we are in need of God’s mercies each day. Are you going to carry all that weight by yourself? Godspeed.
