One of my greatest struggles in life is my natural propensity to worry. I mean it is so easy to naturally turn to worry during any situation.
Will this airplane actually make it to our destination?
Will that semi driver see me if I try to pass him on the interstate?
Is 10 mph too fast to drive on this half an inch of snow?
Is that noise my kid is making a cough or are they gasping for air?
What do you mean there is a virus that is going to cause my family to have to hide in our house for an extended period of time?
Did someone just sneeze?
Does the Bible have anything to say about worry?
In the Bible there is a group of words that mean the same thing as worry. These words literally mean to have a divided mind. We read these words in our Bible as worry, anxiety, or cares.
In other words, we are so concerned about something that our minds are divided. We are unsettled in our thinking about it. We are conflicted on what to even think about the situation that we are enduring.
Another word that follows along closely with worry is the word fear. Fear means a powerful and habitual focus on a perceived danger that prevents us from properly loving God and others.
Before we get too far, I want you to notice that there are several different reasons that people have fear or worry. Some of these fears and worries come from legitimate times of hardship.
It is in these moments or opportunities that our worship is often revealed. Is our hope in Christ or in something else?
And while we may struggle to focus on the goodness of God in the middle of these hardships, we can trust fully in the promises of God. Like any other temptation, fear or worry tries to lead us away from our solid anchor in the promises of God.
What does 1 Peter 5:6-7 teach us?
1 Peter 5:6–7 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
These verses are incredibly important for us to understand what God’s Word has to say about worry, anxiety, cares, or fear. So, let’s take these verses apart to better understand what God is trying to teach us.
Our verses start with the word “therefore.” One of the rules of Bible reading is that whenever you come across the word “therefore,” you should pause and see what it is there for. If we look at the context of this passage, we see a quote in 1 Peter 5:5 that leads right into our chosen passage. “…God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Taking our worries to God requires humility.
Since God is opposed to the proud, we should humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.
Our worry ultimately is founded in our own pride. We somehow believe the lie that we have any form of control over what is happening around us. In our pride we worry as if we can change anything.
What good is done by restlessly lying in bed as you look up the symptoms that you are experiencing or even worry about the diagnosis you were recently given?
- Your worry cannot change what God has ordained in your life.
- Your worry cannot change the fact that eternity is waiting for all of us.
- Your worry cannot change the outcome of your circumstances.
We tend to believe the lie that our effort and personal energy can control our future. We want to be our own master and as a result we can fall into the trap of believing that we control our future, when in reality we do not.
This worry is a warning sign to us that we are trusting in the wrong thing. Worry is a warning sign that we are believing the lie that we can manage things better than God.
We usually worry because we are trying to control what only God controls, to get what only God can provide!
So, we worry because we think we can control our life and God reminds us who really is the person in charge.
Cast All Your Anxiety on Him, because He cares for you!
Verse 7 tells us to cast all our cares on Him, because He cares for you.
Prayer requires our humility to depend on God to meet the needs and provide the strength for the things we are praying about.
Pride causes us to believe that we can meet our own needs and do not need to pray.
Our prayer life indicates where our worship really lies, either in your own strength or humbly in Christ.
By praying and humbly taking your requests to God you allow the peace that only God can give to you to guard your heart and mind.
Instead of googling your symptoms at 3 am, what if you…
- Humbly prayed trusting that God knows what is best for you
- Humbly prayed trusting that God will be with you no matter what may come
- Humbly rested knowing that God can give you peace that surpasses all comprehension
As a follower of Christ my life should look different to those around me when it comes to the concerns of life. It ought to look different because I understand who God is, because I know the goodness of God, and I know God cares for me,
One of my sons is lot like his dad in that he tends to be a worrier. So, with our new-found extra time together while he is home from school and I am working at home, we have started taking the time to stop in the middle of the day to just pray for random things. We have prayed for one of the moms in our small group who has broken her ankle. We have prayed for the health of his grandparents. We have prayed in the midst of concern over sickness from COVID 19. We have even started praying whenever we are driving and we hear a siren.
Yesterday, he said to my wife, “I used to think my faith was a bit too weak, but now I really feel my faith is growing.”
There is no better place to be than to be humbled, laying out all your cares to the only One who is in control. All our hope lies in the One who is in control, who ultimately cares for you more than you ever could.
