Casting Cares

I don't know about you, but I've been feeling super stressed lately.

It might be trying to get back into the swing of normal life after lockdown. It probably has something to do with how the store I work at is seriously understaffed right now, leaving everyone in the building overworked and overwhelmed. It might be that editing was going good, but now I'm stuck again. It could come from a number of sources, but the fact remains:

I'm really stressed out.

And there's really only one surefire solution for the stress. Sure, you can take hot baths and listen to calming music, and those are great ways to relieve stress, but what God asks us to do is this: 

1 Peter 5:7 

    Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 

Philippians 4:6-7

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

 The solution is simple, black and white: cast your cares on God. Pray. Confess your anxieties. Let go.

Should be easy, right?

But no.

We as humans love to overcomplicate everything, and I mean everything. We don't want to feel bad feelings like stress, we want the stress to stop, but when God tells us to just give our stress to him in exchange for peace, we can't do it. Why?

Easy: We hate accepting help. Human beings want to be independent, self-sufficient, running our own lives without a need for anyone. Our ingrained desire to need no help is super obvious in all our books, our movies, our music- everywhere. I might be overthinking here, but isn't even our search for wireless and cordless everything just another shot at cutting an umbilical? It's all part of our false illusion of control: if I never need help, it must mean that I'm in control.

Getting back to the concept of stress, stress itself is really illogical. (Just let me have my Spock moment here, okay?) If you can't do anything about the problem, there's nothing you have to worry about. If there's something you can do about the problem, you don't have to worry about it then either. So why are we so stressed? It's the illusion of control again. We're trying to control the chaos.

But we don't need to control it. We just need to let go. God is offering to take our stress, our worries, our burdens, all the hardship of our day, and replace it with peace and rest. It should be the easiest exchange in the world. If I'm going to try creating a metaphor, God is offering to take our old, broken down cars and replace them with Teslas. But we're hanging on to the lemon car. It doesn't make any sense.

We just need to let go. Pray and tell God what you're going through. He knows, of course he knows, but you need to tell him. Pour out everything that's on your mind and choose to let it all go, because He will take care of you. Where your illusion of control falls apart, he's still there guiding you.

You need God. Like it or not, you need Him.

So trust in him.