The sort of love that is required to take on the problems of another is hard to find in the world. Among men, it is seen in the closest of relationships – between a husband and wife, or in a mother’s love for her child. But the help that human beings give to each other is limited and they cannot handle the most critical anxieties of all. We cannot really comfort each other in bereavement, or heal the wounded conscience, or give a sense of purpose to one who feels the meaninglessness of life. Only the Creator can care for such deep things.
Never forget the God to whom you pray. Never forget his love, and his power, and his faithfulness, and his great goodness. If I cast my anxiety on the Lord, will he care for me? What are you saying? Are you questioning his goodness? Are you saying that he doesn't have integrity, and keep his promise? He has promised that he will be with you always, that you are in his sight, that you are now his property – Christ has purchased you; he is for you and with you, and will help you. It is inconceivable that he won't hear your cry, and take it and answer it in a perfect way.
Mortal life is subject to all manner of dangers and we are dependent on many things which it is not within our power to supply. Furthermore we have many spiritual enemies who are intent on our destruction and plot and scheme to bring about our eternal ruin. We have daily cares for the provision of food, clothing and shelter, for employment and health, for friends and family, and a thousand other details. We have cares connected with our crossing from this world to the next, and for our spiritual safety and eternal future there. If a man thought he had to cope with all these single handed or with only human resources to help him, how could he ever have peace of mind? He can never reach the point where he was in control of every adversity. He would always be aware that a situation could arise which undid all his previous preparation, and circumvented his defences. But he who casts his care upon the Lord has learnt the secret of peace. He has made one who is stronger than all his enemies to be his refuge, one who is constantly attentive to his needs, who never tires of his care, who has infinite resources.
If you hold onto anxiety and you don't really entrust, anxiety fans the flames of self-pity. Anxiety brings about mistrust of the Lord. Anxiety also promotes resentment, and these things are sinful and you don't want to get into any of them. Anxiety may hinder or wound your testimony, because you're not rejoicing in the Lord, and you’re not all for him. Anxiety completely wrecks your patience, and this is a life of patience, and forbearance. Anxiety can promote the ‘I am entitled’ mindset.
In my experience for the last 60 years, the young men, when it comes to courtship and marriage, have mostly been – and this is a generalisation – very nervous about all this. You see it when you conduct a wedding service. The groom is almost always nervous and the bride is seldom nervous. In a way, it’s probably a good thing. They see the magnitude of this, the significance of this, the lifelong commitment involved. The unsaved young men can act according to biology and lust, but the saved young men are nervous. It’s to their credit, but it does hold things up awfully, and sometimes the young women have to take the initiative in courtship.
There are certain things you can't cast upon the Lord. You may be disappointed, because you are frustrated in some selfish desire. Well don't bother to cast that upon the Lord. Just repent of that, and reverse out of it, and ask God's grace to do so. Sometimes there are perfectly wholesome and legitimate things which you desire, and you pray for them, but in the wisdom of God, who is weaving all strands of your life, those things are not for you. We could find so many examples in the life of the apostle Paul. There were things he desired and he longed for, but he couldn't have them. They were for the Lord's glory. He would have long to be instrumental in reaching certain communities and certain people, but he was denied that, and he accepted it (Acts 13:45, 50). How much would Paul have desired to remain there in Pisidian Antioch, as he did at Ephesus! How did the apostle Paul come to preach before kings? How did the apostle Paul ever get to Rome, and his word to Caesar? Only by arrest and humiliation. That brought him before the noblest and the highest, God every time bringing triumph out of what seemed to be loss. There were even hardships, pains, difficulties, a terrible affliction, which he besought the Lord repeatedly for, and he learned that he must bear that by the grace of God, and it would be an example to others of how you would be strengthened and enabled, and God would marvellously carry him through. That would be worth a million sermons to many people. God works his purposes out and even when prayer isn’t answered, it will lead very often to an outcome entirely unforeseen and unexpected by us.
We may apply this to the great choices we have to make in life, those crossroad situations where you don’t know which is the right way to go. You may be seeking the help of the Lord in thinking your way through a decision, but then you come to a point, where it is a choice between two things and you do not know which way to go. If we pray to God and we put the matter in his hands, how does he make known to us the right path? Clearly we will receive help in our thinking processes. As we weigh the pros and cons and consider the issues, we shall be made more understanding than we normally are, more discerning. Often God will intervene in a more remarkable way, simply by closing one door and opening another. If we are sincere and we are seeking his will, and we are not shirking our responsibility but weighing the things very carefully, then, he will even intervene circumstantially. By prayer and submission to him we seek his guidance. We clear the decks of all the things that are selfish and self-seeking, that will confuse guidance. We use the word. We weigh the pros and cons of every situation, and praying to God to sharpen our minds and help us. Then we value his over-rulings when they come. Today amazingly, obedience to God’s will is being discarded, even among many Bible believers – the old desire to seek, to know the guidance of God and the will of God in personal life. A rash of books that have come out, telling Christian people, ‘You take your own decisions, it is entirely up to you what you do, as long as you take decisions that are godly and moral. God does not have a specific will for your life’, they are now saying, which is completely out of step with the word of God and with everything which Bible believers have always taught in the past. It is just another sad indication of the tremendous departure from the old ways and the old standards.
Casting our care upon the Lord does not mean that we take no further action. David cast his care on the Lord when he prayed, ‘O LORD, I pray, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness!’ (2 Samuel 15:31), but this did not stop him sending Hushai to defeat the counsel of Ahithophel. We are to cast our care upon the Lord, not all our responsibilities. By casting our care on the Lord, we are free from anxiety, but we are then able to take those steps which the Lord guides us to take with an assurance that he will bring about the best result. We live our lives and make all our decisions under the sovereign hand of God. For this reason, Peter in the next verse immediately tells believers that they are to be sober and watch. God’s care is a stimulus to our greater diligence for our spiritual safety, not an excuse for neglecting it.
I know Christians, and have known Christians across the years – and I'm sure I'm numbered among them at times – who have known all the right things to say, all the right texts, all the right comforts, but they just haven't practised it. When they've had a great burden, or they've been misused in some way. or unfairly or unreasonably treated, or some calamity or difficulty has come into life, down they've plunged for weeks and weeks, as though this was something that could not possibly be dealt with, or removed; and yet we have such a text as this in our Bibles.