Word of the Way - 1 Peter 5:7

Word on the Way is a passage sent out daily by Way.FM

Monday, May 24
1 Peter 5:7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

Let this wash over you. Taking away the burdens in your heart weighing you down.

This is Jesus. Why? Because I needed this verse. I'm sitting here with a bad case of the Mondays wondering if God will ever help me out of this bad job situation. I want to do more than add numbers together and watch them be ignored. I want to do good for the Lord and for the world, and selfishly for myself. But these are worries and cares that are beyond me. I have no real power over my destiny, my path or, a better way to put it, where God wants me.

So, here I am giving my worries and cares to God...well, I'm trying, because its hard. Giving them away means I have to relinquish my control over my life, over these cares that are burning me out. It's actually surprising that I hold onto them, because I really have no control over them. Either you have to accept that God is control or that life is random (you could argue that we have control - but I think in the end we have to answer the fundamental question: God or no God; when we answer that our belief system develops accordingly), but both leave you mostly powerless to really do anything. A random life will leave you spinning your wheels for direction or listlessly following the flow of life regardless of what the future holds. A God controlled life leaves you in the hands of God.

The verse tells us to take our cares to God. I think if you actually pictured yourself before Almighty God, you would be speechless. Your cares would be so insignificant to His glory; but the truth is God cares. Despite our insignificance, despite our sin He still cares for us. He is calling us closer. He is asking to hear our prayers. He is asking us to bring our brokenness to Him. Like Tenth Avenue North in their song "Any Other Way", God comes to us and says "I need your hurt, I need your pain; it's not love any other way". How can God love us if we don't trust Him with our needs?

See, God is not calling us to a religion of independence. He is calling us to relational dependence. I was thinking about this on the way to work; and the truth is God will always be the creator and we will always be the creation. There was a time when I always asked for strength; but I should have been asking for weakness so that I could run to Him and depend on His strength. He wants to love me and my holding back on trusting Him with my worries and cares is holding back on my receiving His love. In other words, my holding on to the control of my life is standing in between my breaking and hurting heart and His love.

But God still loves me. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit loves me enough to care about my worries. He loved me so much He sent His son, He came down and died, He dwells in my heart.