Just stand

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. (I Peter 5:7)

All, not just some. Give them all to God. Seems easy enough, right? Nope! It isn't all that easy because we have this tendency to 'hold onto' just a few more worries than we should. The trouble with that is we aren't allowing the one who can 'take care' of them to handle them. Taking on the burden of those cares is not our 'duty' or even our 'privilege'. It is sin! God tells us to give him all our cares, so when we hold onto them so tightly, worrying them along, we get buried under a load of weight, some of which is the guilt we experience by not letting them go. 

Our shoulders weren't meant to bear that burden. All we can do in life is our 'best', then we leave the rest to Jesus. If we have done our part, we need to allow him to do his. The issue comes when we think 'our part' goes way beyond where it should go. Our 'best' is done now, then Jesus does his best as things unfold. The obedience we manifest today might not solve all the problems we are facing, but that tiny bit of obedience today leads to God's big interventions tomorrow and on down the road. We need to learn that God really does care about us - these are more than mere words that sound good. They are truth and we need to allow them to become reality in our lives.

I have frequent spoken of roots - deep roots find what they are after - nourishment and refreshment. God's plan is for troubles or worries to drive our roots deeper, but too frequently we focus on the problem and forget that we could tap into something much greater than the problem if we just keep ourselves 'rooted' in Jesus. Truth is that we rarely get life 'perfect', right? If we do our best, then give God the ability and 'permission' to actually do what he does best, we might just find ourselves a little less anxious, more at peace with our circumstances, and deeply 'solid' in our faith. 

When we have done all God asks, then we stand. We stand in faith, stronger than we look, and even stronger than we may feel at times. God will work out the rest, but we have to give him the chance to do 'his thing'. It is likely time we all learn to trust God with what we cannot do, what we might have tried to 'overdo', and just stand. Just sayin!