“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)
The scripture is encouraging us to stop worrying, and trust God. If you look at this verse in the Greek (in which it was written) it is also giving the idea of putting responsibility of the care upon God. Too often we take responsibility for things that we shouldn’t. In the previous verse (1 Peter 5:6) we are told to “humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God”. Verse 7 explains how we “humble ourselves”, and that’s by not carrying our burdens, worries, anxiety or cares. We were not created to worry and God never intended for us to carry or bare our burdens and cares.
As Jesus said, “in this life you will have troubles” (John 16:33) and so we will have many opportunities to worry and be concerned about many legitimate things. However, Jesus continues by saying “take heart for I have overcome the world.” That’s why we don’t have to be consumed with worry – Jesus is greater than any problem we could ever face! A person who carries their cares and burdens is not truly humble. They’re actually full of pride. Pride is the root cause of most worry or anxiety in our lives. Pride makes us believe that we have a sense of responsibility to carry our cares and sort out our problems where God is saying that we should let go of the false sense of responsibility towards our problems, and allow Him to bare it and take care of it, because He cares (affectionately) for us.
For most of us it is difficult to cast our cares and concerns on another and rely on them and allow them to care for us. But this is pride. The Creator of the universe, who is our Father, can care for us better than we can care for ourselves, and yet we so often believe the lie that we need to sort out our own problems and carry our own worries.
Years back I heard a minister say that “worry is a result of not trusting in God or believing His promises. Worry is unbelief and not of faith.” That got me to let go of worry pretty quickly.
“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.” Isaiah 26:3-4 ESV
We all want to experience peace, especially perfect peace! What many people don’t realize is that peace is the result of having the correct focus and of thinking right. When we’re focused on God and His promises, then we’re kept in perfect peace. Peace is a natural by-product of trusting in God. If you’re not experiencing peace it’s because you’re not trusting in God. And you’re not trusting in God probably because you aren’t in the Word. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word” (Romans 10:17). Faith comes as we are “hearing” (present tense) the Word, not “heard” (past tense) the Word. When we’re in faith we will not be worried and we will have perfect peace because faith knows that God’s Word is true, and what He says is.
God wants to look after you. He wants you to let go of your burden and “not allow your heart to be troubled” (John 14:1). He wants you to let go of all your cares and trust in Him. He wants you not to have one single worry in your life (Matthew 6:25) and not be concerned with the cares of life – give all your worries, burdens, cares and concerns to God, because He cares for you!