CASTING CARE / TAKING CARE -- Devotional for August 6, from "Good Seeds"

Casting all your cares upon Him, because He cares for you. (I Peter 5:7)

An important law for living that most of us never learn – but if we could learn it we would be relieved of so much self-inflicted stress – is simply this: “Know what is yours to do, and what is yours to leave alone; know what is your responsibility and what is others’, or God’s; know when to act, and when to wait.” This lesson for living is reflected in the well known Serenity Prayer by pastor/theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: “God grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change, the COURAGE to change the things I can, and the WISDOM to know the difference between the two.” When we begin to understand the division of labor regarding job descriptions we can learn to say, about some things, “That’s my job, and so by God’s enabling grace I’m going to do it!” – but about other things, to say with equal conviction and determination, “That’s somebody else’s responsibility, not mine, so I’ll steer clear and stand down.” Christians, especially, have a tendency to get in trouble here. We barge into other people’s lives with well-intentioned but unwelcome unasked-for-advice or help. “Oh, but I’m not speaking or acting for myself,” we say. “No, I’m on a mission for God, commissioned by Him to be His spokesman, His emissary!” And before we know it we are playing Holy Spirit, thinking to bring conviction of sin, or presuming to know God’s viewpoint and God’s will for someone else! To share a word from the Bible, or a simple “cup of cold water,” can be very helpful, but any more than that can quickly become sinful presumption (see Psalm 19:13). Wisdom, says Niebuhr, is knowing the difference between what we can do, and what is totally beyond our power to do, to bring about healing and wholeness. Wisdom, says the Bible, is distinguishing between what God wants me to do and what only He can do. As soon as troubles and cares enter our lives we must learn to immediately CAST them on Jesus. He will not take them from us, apart from our giving them to Him. They will fester within us, poisoning all around us, until we cast them from us. But as soon as we do, God goes into action – for just as it is our job to CAST care, so it is God’s job to TAKE care! It’s a game of catch: we throw our cares to God, and He will catch them – every time! And He will do with them what only God can do: turn them into blessings, into victories, or, as the rest of the serenity prayer says, “Help me accept hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that You will make all things right, as I surrender to Your will, so that I may be reasonable happy for now, in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen!” Amen, indeed!