Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully. 1 Peter 5:7 AMPC
When I was in college, I taught the youth at the Assembly of God in the big city of Whiteface. Our church had classes for every age and so the church decided to start a true bus ministry. For a bus ministry to thrive a bus is needed to pick the children around town up and bring them to the ministries that our church offered. As the youth leader and growing up around bus ministry all my life, I decided the youth could do fund raisers to buy a bus to pick the children up. We found a used church bus for around $900.00 and the youth passionately raised money to pay for the bus. (They were so successful, we even had enough money to buy a stove for the kitchen.) We planned car washes, made homemade suckers and sold them for $.25, anything we could think of to raise the money needed for the bus. One Sunday Night after church we had a spaghetti supper. We reserved the community center and showed up early to clean and start cooking the spaghetti. I was busy helping setting up and I called across the room and asked my younger sister to check and see if the noodles were done. She went to the stove and fished out a single noodle, put it between her fingers and threw it at the wall. I stood there horrified; the noodle stuck to the wall. It did not slide, it did not bounce back, it just stuck there. In my shock, I asked her “What did you do that for?” She calmly answered me and said, “The spaghetti is done. When it sticks to the wall then you will know it is done.” Sure, enough the noodles were done and I think we raised about $80.00 that night to go towards our bus fund. We finally raised enough money to go and pick up our new bus. We had an official bus ministry along with a church. We could learn a lot from casting the spaghetti on the wall and letting it stick when it comes to our walk with God. Sometimes our mind and emotions are like the pot of boiling water, all the frustrations, fears, hurts, concerns, disappointments, lack of finances, lack of opportunities, and loneliness get put in the “boiling water” of our emotions and mind and we think that if the problems and cares simmer long enough by our stewing over them we can work them out and we will be done with it and the problems will be resolved. The truth is our emotions and reasoning can be a dangerous place for the problems we face in life. The more we “stew” on our difficulties, the more they grow. ”Stewing” or worrying about things does not benefit us at all. Jesus was very clear when He taught, we are not to worry because it is unbeneficial. In Luke 12:22-26 “Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, nor about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither store house nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his statue? If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest?”” I saw a poster years ago and it said “They tell me worrying does not work, but 90% of the things I sorry about never happen.” The creator of the poster interpreted the results of worrying wrong. Instead of thinking that worrying resolves 90% of our problems, the truth is 90% of the things we worry about usually work themselves out. So, are we supposed to just pick 10% of the things to worry about? Absolutely not, we are supposed to have self-control and order our thoughts. Instead of rehashing the conversation or concern over and over in our mind, we should “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:5. They tell us that a cluttered workspace or desk is the sign of a creative mind, the opposite is true of the mind, a mind that is cluttered by worries, concerns, anxieties struggles to be productive because there are too many unresolved problems swirling in the space that is designed to create and enjoy life.
We will experience the peace, freedom from worries and anxieties, when we cast all our burdens on Him. I am sure Peter knew what it was like to burdened down with problems, the cares of this world, building the New Testament Church while evading the Roman government. He knew the secret to living an anxious free life. “Casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7. Some translations say, throw you cares on Him. Just like the spaghetti we need to take our problems out of the swirling emotions of our mind and throw them on God. The Greek word for cast in this scripture is Epiripsantes: meaning to throw upon or throw at. It is not a passive or gentle gesture, but it is decisive and abrupt. Throw is a forceful word and that is what we need to do with our cares, get rid of them as fast as we can, throwing them out of our mind and emotions and make sure they stick on God when we throw them away. The cares should never be picked back up, nor should they bounce back and slap us in the face, but be forcefully given to God. Why would we throw our cares on Him? That is easy. He cares for you! He genuinely cares for you and what is going on in your life, family, job and circumstances. He knows we are not designed to carry it all alone, but He invited us to come to Him and give them to Him. In fact, He has issued an invitation that we are too quick to brush off, “Come to Me, all you who are labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29. Which cares are we supposed to cast on Him? All of them! There is no care that is too small or too big that He cannot fix and we are not supposed to give Him some of our anxieties to make room for more things to worry about in our life. We are to give all of them to Him. I did a lady’s hair several years ago and her cat went missing. I asked her if she had prayed for the cat and she told me “We do not bother God with such insignificant matters.” My brotherin- law’s great nephew lost his dog and his mom took him all over town with the windows rolled down calling for the dog and could not find him. When they got home the small boy went to his room and when his mother asked him what he was doing, he said he had to talk to Jesus. A few minutes later, he found his mom and told her to get her keys they were going to get his dog because God told it was on “5th and Main” (I do not remember the two streets). His mom told him they had just been there, but to appease him, she drove them to 5th and Main and guess who was sitting by the stop sign. That little boy knew the power of casting all his cares on God. Being a grown up is not about knowing how to handle the “cares” but knowing where to cast them. When we cast our cares upon God, it not only frees our minds up to focus on God and the things that matter, it also gives God the opportunity to work on those “cares” that we cannot fix. Psalms 55:22 promises “Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken.”
Cathy Nesmith