Releasing Our Cares
Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you…
Psalm 55:22
When I am afraid I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?
Psalm 56:3-4
To cast our cares on the Lord requires that we grasp them first, that we identify what our cares and concerns truly are – not just those on the surface of our lives but those hidden deep within our hearts.
Second, however, it requires that we release them into God’s hands. To “cast” means to toss and to release that item in the throw. It describes a different action from “placing” something somewhere. If we place an item in someone’s hands that means that our hand guides it there and does not release the item until it is safely in their grasp. But if we cast or toss an item to someone, it means that we have released it from our grip long before it arrives in theirs.
Casting our cares upon God means that we release them in faith into His hands. Prayer is a means of tossing problems God’s way, of releasing them in faith and letting Him receive them. In times of fear and moments of worry, with difficult situations and frustrating people, with daunting challenges and troublesome memories, with obstacles as well as with opportunities, we need to form the habit in prayer of releasing all things into the hand of God.
Casting our cares on God does not mean a call to inactivity on our part – often it is just the opposite, that God calls us to become very active in working out a solution to the thing that concerns us. It means however that we are free from the worry and fear, from the fuss and frustration, and go about our business with the peace that passes all understanding guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:4-9).
Casting our cares does not mean a call to apathy, for Paul expressed his own sense of burden and responsibility for the work begun in churches, “Besides everything else,” he wrote, “I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?” (2 Cor. 11:28-29). It means that we are depending on the Lord and on His greatness and faithfulness to His purposes and people.
Are there cares and concerns, difficult people and circumstances you are facing today? Give them boldly and fully to the Lord and He will sustain you. It could be that He will send you as His ambassador to bring about a solution to the matter. It could be that He will send someone else. He might show us that it is we who are wrong in a certain matter. Or perhaps all that we can do is to pray and wait. But there will come the victory of the peace of God for all who learn the patience of persevering in prayer.
Prayer:
Lord, teach us to wait and trust, to cast our troubles and concerns to You. Amen.