Where Are You Casting Your Cares?
Good Morning Friends,
There is little doubt in my mind that you have already discovered that becoming a Christian does not make your problems go away. People, addictions and issues can rob us of an abundant life. Thankfully God has given us the advocacy of the Holy Spirit to take every concern we have. But we have to choose. Where Are You Casting Your Cares?
Scripture: Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.
1 Peter 5:7 (NRSV)
For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.
Ecclesiastes 2:23 (NRSV)
O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth; they shall be given over to the power of the sword, they shall be prey for jackals. But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.
Psalm 63 (NRSV)
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not “Yes and No”; but in him it is always “Yes.” For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” For this reason it is through him that we say the “Amen,” to the glory of God.
2 Corinthians 1:19-20 (NRSV)
Message: There are a lot of promises in the Bible and I think that they can really bring hope and comfort. The promises are not frivolous and superficial. They are solid commitments…such as “seek and you will find.” Or a variation of, “you may not get what you want but you will get what you need.” However, sometimes the words alone, in the reading, do not solve the problem before us. Sometimes the reading aloud alone does not tie everything up in a bow nice and neat and resolved. Sometimes the Holy Spirit has to place the words as a song on our hearts. And that does not always happen right away. One has to meet with God and others day by day and concede one is ineffective and that life is out of control. One has to believe that God can and will restore reason. So in today’s scripture David made a decision to turn his will and life over to the care of God. And I have to imagine that he would in time make a list of his problems and confess to God the nature of his wrong doings and humbly asked God to remove those sins of character. David, when He was writing this Psalm had problems… big problems that were disturbing him. His son Absalom was seeking to kill him and take over the kingdom. His adultery with Bathsheba was ravaging his family. His son Amnon had raped his half-sister Tamar and Absalom in revenge had killed Amnon. Here is a man with a deep longing in his soul. He is aching, hurting and crying out as a man in the desert for a drink of water and God comes to him as an answer to his parade of problems. Yes in time David did have a spiritual awakening but first he was inclined to blame others as we too are inclined to do. The insight of David is that he knew the benefit of starting off on the right foot at the beginning of each day. That is perhaps why he wrote Psalm 63. For it is a song designed to be sung in the morning. It teaches us to go first thing in the morning to Him…to worship, to praise, to glorify, to meditate upon and sing and even to rejoice in all the cares we have. Writing these devotional and living my life with its challenges has taught me that I cannot be reading and writing about God and worrying about all the things I would like to control. So if I am tormented in my sleep I turn to scripture and sometimes that does wonders to get my mind right with God. The thing is that my very soul is restless until I find rest in God. So if I seek Him, draw close to Him, knowing I need Him just like I need food and air and water…He draws close to me and God will draw close to you too. So trust in the promises of God. One of our greatest errors is to assume we can deal with something ourselves, only to discover that we really cannot. Indeed we need to let go and let God.
Pray we realize that God is in control and capable of handling every trial as an expression of love. Pray we realize that casting our cares and anxieties on God is a conscious choice. Pray we realize that turning over our problems to God…trusting God…allows God to carry the weight of our burdens. Pray we realize that God is able to restore us physically, mentally and spiritually. Pray we feel God’s love and believe in the promises. Pray we allow God to write a love story on our hearts that prompts us to sing God’s praise early in the morning.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 