God is taking care of my cares.
“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God [set aside self-righteous pride], so that He may exalt you [to a place of honor in His service] at the appropriate time, casting all your cares [all your anxieties, all your worries, and all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares about you [with deepest affection, and watches over you very carefully]."
- 1 Peter 5:6-7 (Amplified Bible)
Was listening to a pastor the other morning who brought this scripture’s interpretation home for me. He essentially said the way we humble ourselves is by giving God all our cares. Feels like I’ve been reading it wrong the whole time! These verses always seemed like a list of things to do when actually Peter was giving us a directive in verse 6 and then telling us how to do it in verse 7. Mind blown.
Anyway, it struck me particularly this morning because I’ve been asked how we tread that line between humility and letting our dopeness shine several times in interviews and feel like this is the answer that I’ve been trying to articulate:
Being humble has nothing to do with dimming our light. Humility is about letting God be our parent.
Have you ever seen the blind trust a child has for its mom and dad? How every now and then (not all the time as we all know lol) they actually just do what their parents tell them to do? Not for any other reason than because mom or dad said so. That’s what humility looks like.
We humble ourselves by saying you’re the dad, I’m the child. I’m not the boss, You are. I’m not the one with all the answers, You are. I’m not the one who knows how to make a way or get this to happen, You are. I’m not the one who’s able to heal this relationship, pay this unexpected bill or get them to change, You are. I’m just gon’ chill over here playing with my toys and when it’s time for me to do something else, You’re going to tell me what to do and I’m gonna do it. Simple.
I know it feels more complicated than that though. It’s hard to be an adult while simultaneously being a child of God! We’re at constant war with one side of our identities as caretakers of our own kids, bills and life responsibilities while on the other side we’re supposed to be carefree like children, trusting God to provide everything we need.
I know I definitely haven’t mastered the art of casting all my cares on God but I can tell you how I practice. Whenever I realize I’m anxious about something, I am trying to build the habit of talking to Him about it like our scripture this week tells us to do. Then I’ll speak out loud that God is taking care of “x,y,z” and maybe post that declaration up on my wall so I can constantly be reminded that this is no longer my concern.
If you have a care or anxiety weighing you down right now, I encourage you to talk to God about it. Then say out loud: “God is taking care of __(whatever your care is)___” or “God is an expert at __(whatever your care is)___”. Keep declaring it over your situation until it finally sinks in: God got this.
He signed up to take care of you when He created & called you; let Him figure it out.
Still hungry? Eat some more //
Matthew 18:2-4→ Being like a child is how we humble ourselves.
Psalm 55:22→ He WILL sustain you. His word promises it.