Cast the "Cares Bags"

When I first saw him, I instinctively thought he was homeless. There he was, slowly pushing up the street a cart laden with what seemed like his life's possessions. I had seen him a number of times before and it was always the same thing. Everywhere he went, his cart and its contents went with him.

I thought of him as I reflected on Peter's short but rather profound sentence to the elders to whom he was writing, "Casting all your care upon Him [God]; for He careth for you" (1 Peter 5:7, KJV). In my reflections, it occurred to me that like the man who carried his stuff with him wherever he went, so too some of us carry our cares and concerns everywhere we go. We are never without them. It is as if we unload our "cares bags" by the side of our beds and once we awake in the mornings, we get dressed and then dutifully - though often times without thinking - we take up our bag, ready to carry it around with us for the rest of the day. We do that every day. Inside the bag are our cares, our worries, our frustrations, and our anxieties, to name a few. All the while professing belief in an awesome God who can do the impossible. Obviously, for some of us our God is not that awesome. We have made Him too small and as a result, we think our "cares bags" are too heavy for Him to carry. We justify carrying them ourselves.

Yet Peter reminds us, as he did the elders, that we can cast ALL our cares upon Him. I like how the Amplified Bible puts it, "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." In other words, we can be rid of our bags by throwing them upon Him "once and for all!" We do not have to be burdened down with our loads of care. The accuser of the brethren is quite content for us to do just that, but that only leads to spiritual, emotional, mental and psychological rust and burn out. In the words of the old hymn writer, "Oh what peace we often forfeit / Oh, what needless pain we bear / All because we do not carry / Everything to God in prayer." When we find ourselves worrying and unable to rest in the peace God promises, it is a sure sign that we are still carrying our own “cares bags.”

There is tremendous freedom in casting ALL our cares upon the One we serve, knowing that not only does He cares about us but also that He does so affectionately and watchfully. What are you doing with your "cares bag"? God stands by ready to relieve you of it. You just need to cast it upon Him. Too heavy, you say? Trust me, He is big and powerful enough to manage it. Yours and everybody else's.