Constant Casting

Shift Your Focus… Someone has said that “worry is a thin stream of fear which, if encouraged, becomes a wide channel into which all other thoughts flow.”  English apologist C.S. Lewis wrote, “Anxiety is not only a pain which we must ask God to assuage but also a weakness we must ask Him to pardon—for He’s told us to take no care for the morrow.”

So rather than holding onto those worries, allowing them to become a river of fear, our Christian call is to cast them onto God. That’s what Peter says. Cast your worries, fears and anxieties on God.  All of them!  Big ones, for sure.  And even the little ones.  He will take them all, because he cares that much for you!

That means you will need to practice the art of constant casting. You will not simply be able to cast your cares onto God once and be done with them for good.  You’ll need to cast them continually because you will never be far from problems.  And those problems will continually be feeding that tributary of worry, and that tributary will be continually flowing into that river of fear that threatens to sweep you under.  That’s just the reality of your life.  Mine, too.

So the next time you find yourself worrying—which will probably be within minutes after reading this post—just cast it back to God and say, “Lord, this one is too big for me.  Here, you handle it.”

Sounds simple, I know, but just try it.  Try it for a week.  Take every single one of your anxieties, worries and fear in the next seven days—all of them—and consciously cast them onto God, and just see what happens.

If you will, God’s promise—not mine, but God’s—is that you will find yourself in his care (I Peter 5:7) and experiencing his peace (Philippians 3:6-7).

“The branch of the vine does not worry, and toil, and rush here to seek for sunshine, and there to find rain. No; it rests in union and communion with the vine; and at the right time, and in the right way, is the right fruit found on it. Let us so abide in the Lord Jesus.” ~Hudson Taylor

Prayer… Lord, here they are—all of my problems.  They are too big for me.  I refuse to stay up late worrying over them one more night.  Since you’re up anyway, why don’t you worry about them?  So I give them to you, and in exchange, by faith, I will rest in your care and receive your peace.