“…Casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7

The Apostle Peter wrote these words to a struggling church. In addition to the difficulties of living in the first century—plagues, barbarians, and recessions—believers also were being persecuted. Their anxieties were many. In the face of trying times and uncertain futures, what does Peter tell them to do? Literally, throw their cares upon God. Like you might heave a saddle on a horse’s back, this is what these struggling Christians were to do with their concerns. Let them rest upon the Lord and not themselves.

We live in a world where people are naturally disquieted. When you add things like COVID-19, stay-in-place orders, and economic difficulties, it just makes this fact even more obvious. We’re filled with doubt and distress. We bear the weight of a thousand issues—our own and others’. However, Peter tells us to hoist these troubles upon the Lord. The cares we have about our futures, finances, and feelings of isolation, we are to give to God, and let him bear them.

Yet, why do this? Peter declares, ^“Because he cares for you.” The Apostle is saying, “Lay your burdens on the Lord, because not only is he able to carry them, but also he is willing. Your cares are his cares.” Think about the people Peter was originally writing to. They were weighed down. Emotionally, they felt crushed. However, here Peter exclaims, “Put those concerns upon the Lord. He loves you and will gladly take them. He will support you in the whelming flood.” Is this true for us in our day and time? Do we need proof? “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

The Lord cares so much that he sacrificially gave for sinners. The Father loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10) Christ, for the joy set before him, endured the Cross. (Hebrews 12:2) The question is, do we believe God warmly attends to us? Even as coronavirus cases mount, stock markets fall, loneliness sets in, and death tolls rise, do we believe that God cares? Look no further than the cross, and evidence is found. See on Golgotha’s hill the reason why we, as the people of God, can throw our worries upon the Lord. God in Christ bore our sins, and he wants our burdens also. Let us be faithful to lay them all on his strong shoulders. May we cast our anxieties upon him, remember his love, and trust him to work for his glory and our good.