To Carry All Our Worry

There is a plaque that some people have in their homes that reads

“Why pray when you can worry?” It makes us laugh because we know

how often we worry rather than come to God and give Him our con-

cerns.

Someone once said that when our life becomes all tied up, we should

give it to God and let Him untie the knots. How God must long to do

this for us. Yet, amazingly, we manage to hang on to our problems until

we are about to snap. Why do we wait until we are desperate before we

go to the Lord?

Read 1 Peter 5:7. Peter is quoting from Psalm 55:22. What’s the basic

message here for us? (See also Matt. 6:25–33.)

It is a very simple text. There is no secret hidden in it, and it means

exactly what it says. To cast means to do just that, to throw, to give

away, so that what is causing the aching and the concern no longer has

any connection to you. But, of course, our burdens are not thrown just

anywhere. Our worry does not disappear into a void. It is given to our

Father in heaven, who promises to sort it out. That’s what Jesus is tell-

ing us in the verses in Matthew. The problem in doing this is not that it’s

hard; rather, it’s that it just seems too easy, too good to be true.

Anxiety is caused by all sorts of things. It could be due to pres-

sure from work, unexpected criticism, feeling that we are unwanted

or unloved, health or financial worries, feeling that we are not good

enough for God, or believing that we are not forgiven.

Whatever the reasons are, one reason we hang on to our problems

is that we think we can sort them out better than anyone else can. But

Peter urges us to reconsider any such idea. The reason we don’t have

to worry is that God cares. But does God still care enough to intervene

when a divorce is looming or we feel totally useless? The Bible says

that He cares enough to transform any situation.

What are things that cause you worry now? However legitimate

they are, however troublesome they are, is there anything too hard

for the Lord? Maybe our biggest problem is that even though we

believe that God knows about it and can fix it, we don’t believe

that He will resolve it the way we would like it resolved. Dwell on

that last point and ask yourself how true it is in your own life.