Help for Anxiety

Last Sunday we journeyed through Matthew 6:25–34 and 1 Peter 5:7, learning our Lord’s direction for relief of our anxieties.

Two words: cast and seek!

First is cast from 1 Peter 5:7: “Cast your cares on Him for He cares for you.” Cast means just what it says—to throw onto something. Here we take the anxiety, cares, and worries and cast them on Jesus. He cares for you and can handle them, whereas we cannot. You can’t go to Him in prayer, cast them on Him, then pick them up all over again! We bundle them up and lay them at His feet, giving them in total to Him. It is a conscious act. We never pick them up again. Then we are still in the circumstances we were before, except now we are free, unencumbered, to seek His kingdom (lordship, He is present and working).

We seek that, and seek it first. How is Jesus working in my circumstances? How is He shaping me? How is He setting me up to be used by Him? As He shows us these things (remember, we’re free from our anxieties), we act by faith to join Him in what He is doing.

As we follow Him this way, both casting our cares upon Him and seeking Him, He not only leads us forward doing good but He gives us peace (Phil. 4:6–7). So why not take those hurts and cares and worries and bring them right to Jesus and cast them upon Him. It’s what He tells us to do.

Be free, then, to seek what He is doing and follow! Let’s start today!