On Casting Cares

One (just one) of my all-time favorite Bible verses is 1 Peter 5:7. It says, “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” (NIV) I’ve even performed a song called “Cares Chorus” in my past life, based on this verse. lol

In the Living Bible translation, it says, “Let Him have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you.”

Could there BE a better verse??

As a human/woman/wife/mom/sister/friend/etc, I could make a very long list of things that concern me. And whoever and whatever you are, so could you.

This verse is such amazing comfort when it says God is “watching everything that concerns you.”

How often do we, and I mean all of us, think that we are the only ones concerned about our concerns. We can rarely find another human that is concerned with our specific concerns…cuz they’re busy being concerned with their specific and individual concerns.

But, oh my golly, people!!! How wonderful is it that, as we are concerned about our concerns, we are most definitely not concerning about them all alone. God is right there with us….right there concerning about our concerns with us. No matter what they are. (Because honestly, some of our concerns are a mere blip on God’s eternal/cosmic radar, even though they’re a giant hurricane or tidal wave on ours!)

I learned this truth many years ago, when David and I and his parents traveled all across America, ministering to churches and people 40+ weeks a year for many years. Earlier on, “The Ramseys” mostly did the music, because we traveled with an amazingly sweet and dear and genuine evangelist/preacher friend, Dr. Bob Elliott. 

I remember Brother Bob (as we affectionally referred to him) giving a message on this very verse…and the way that he illustrated it was life-changing to me.

He would said it this way (because he always wore a suit with a fine jacket)… “Imagine this jacket is all of your worries and all of your concerns and all of your wonderings. The idea Peter is presenting us with is this: You take off that ‘suit-jacket’ of worries and concerns, and you ‘cast’ it upon Jesus”…at which point, he would literally remove his jacket and “cast” it upon a microphone stand or a chair or whatever was nearby. He would then say, “That is the idea behind ‘casting’ our cares upon Jesus.”

But then he would go on to say this. “But the trouble with us human, imperfect people, is that we say, ‘Ok, thank You much, Jesus, for carrying that for awhile. But I’ll take it back now…” and we pick up our worries and cares and we put them back on us and we walk away.

Come on! That’s ridiculous, right!? Why in the world would we do that? We are so puffed up in ourselves that we think we can handles those things, when Jesus says, “Hey! You most certainly CANNOT handle those things. But I can! So stop giving them to me and then taking them back and putting them on!!”

So this is my prayer for this new year. When worries and concerns shove their way into my thoughts and my emotions, I’m going to find a way to physically represent “casting” those things onto Jesus. I mean, listen…He’s definitely big enough and capable enough to handle those things for me. And once I do that, all I have to do is sit back in His grace and watch Him do His thing!

And then the most wonderful thing happens. In the place of those worries and those concerns, He gives me a peace that surpasses all understanding. And I can breathe deep…and I can sleep well.

And my prayer is this: So can you!

Thank you, my Jesus!