Cast Your Care

Every one of us has cares. We have them in all ways and types. We carry these cares in our minds, souls, and emotions. We have the cares of worry, finances, health, the future, the past, our pain, friends, jobs, careers, life in general and much, much more.

I don’t know about you but sometimes when I read the Bible, I can read it too quickly. Then other times I read it with too common an attitude. I read the words but gloss over certain words instead of looking at the deeper meaning.

This was apparent to me when I read, I Peter 5:7 – “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” (KJV)

How Do You Cast Your Cares?

I read this verse over and over and then I wondered why did the writer say cast your care? I began to think about the word care and the word cast. Why are those two words used together? How does one cast a care exactly?

I began to think about my cares and then how to cast them. I was stumped. My cares were numerous.  I carried in my soul the cares of divorce and living alone, dying alone, being sick, loneliness on a daily basis, financial worries, my future, my kids, my career or non-career, my writing life, how to navigate adult children and their decisions, fears of the future of the country and more.  Whew! That is a lot!

I have been so weighted down with my cares that I have suffered depression, anxiety, sleepless nights and more because of things I keep carrying. As a Christian we know we should give these things to Jesus but sometimes we don’t know how. How Lord? How do I really give you these things that I drag around in my soul that is affecting my life and my peace?

Jesus Cares

Now I don’t know about you but I’m sure you have cares too and probably thought about this verse as I have. Then it came to me. All these things we care about, He cares about. All these things are too much for us to handle or solve on our own. But Jesus can.

Cares will come as a part of our lives. But what did Jesus mean when He told Peter that we, His children, are to cast our care? Then it came to me. Cast…. Cast… What do you do when cast something?

I saw myself on a lakeshore. Then I saw Jesus out in the middle of the lake several hundred feet out. There was Jesus out there saying to me, “Stephanie, cast your cares on to me.”  But when I hear that at first, I’m on the shore and He is out there impossible to reach because I have no boat. How am I to give Him my cares if they were even tangible in that moment. How do I get them to Jesus? He said to cast them.

I’m on the shore and all I have is a rod and reel. I look down and there before my eyes is a bucket called “Cares” and a rod and reel. The bucket was filled and overflowing with words of all kinds. I looked closer and the words were my words. They were all the stuff I felt and held secret inside. It was all the stuff that was weighing me down and keeping me from my best life. My cares right there in the bucket and spilling over onto the lake shore.

Cast Your Cares

Jesus yelled again, “Cast them to me.” Then it dawned on me. Cast. Pick up the cares, put them on the reel and all I needed to do was flick my wrist. I learned something. Jesus said cast your care because the cares are heavy. Some of them feel like mountains that I couldn’t even lift. The cares we carry are so big and so heavy that sometimes we are crushed under the weight of them.

Divorced crushed me. Loneliness has hurt my emotions. Fear has stopped me from writing my best book. But no more! Once you decide to empty your “care bucket” the words are not as heavy. Jesus gives you enough strength put them on the hook. I picked up the words one by one, just as you should. Pick them up and put them on the end of the rod and reel and cast.

Casting means to flick your wrist and move the rod forward. When you do this in fishing the thing on the end goes flying out into the water with barely any effort on your part. All you really do it flick your wrist. The words on the end of my rod in this moment flung hundreds of feet to Jesus.

Jesus gives you enough strength to cast the cares to Him, but not enough to keep the cares. The crushing weight of our problems is so heavy that you and I only have enough strength to move or flick our wrist with the words of our cares out to Jesus.

Cast whatever you need to get rid of. Cast whatever is crushing your soul. Empty your bucket today.

Selah.