Cast your cares on the Lord

All of us have things that we need to deal with in our lives, but ignoring them, holding onto them or even trying to run away from them will certainly not resolve them

Source: Prophetic Light

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if life was so simple that we didn’t experience difficulties, hardship, sorrow, disappointment, grief, sadness and all of the other things that challenge us as part of our day to day lives? God knew that we would experience all of these things, however in His Word He shows us what we should do at these times; Psalms 55:22 ‘Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken’ and 1 Peter 5:7 ‘Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you’, Amen. Jesus, whilst talking to His disciples just before He was arrested told them that they too would experience troubles; John 16:33 ‘I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world’. Notice that Jesus does not say ‘if you have trouble’, but, ‘you will have trouble’. If we expect the World to be anything but challenging in our lives then we would be living in false hope because, the Word of God clearly tells us to expect these situations and circumstances throughout our lives.

So, we accept that we are going to encounter difficult times in our lives however it is the manner in which we deal with them which will determine what impact we allow them to have on our lives. Sometimes we may let things consume our thoughts and to dominate our lives, to a point that other parts of our lives become affected such as relationships with family and friends, work, sleep, our health etc. We hold onto things that have happened in the past and just won’t let them go, things that are denying our freedom to be able to move on. Why do we continually hold onto things that only serve to prolong our pain? Why do we allow our minds to be consumed with things from the past that make us unhappy, anxious, worried, frightened and often lead to us feeling unwell? Why do we keep living in the past, when the past is where it actually belongs? All of these are distractions which take away our freedom to love, serve and glorify our Father.

Source: Year 27

All of us have things that we need to deal with in our lives, but ignoring them, holding onto them or even trying to run away from them will certainly not resolve them. We could run to the other side of the World to try and outrun our problems however the reality of this is that the only thing that would change is the destination. We may enjoy our new destination for a few days or weeks but it is only a matter of time before whatever it is we are trying to run away from re-emerges back into our lives.

Last year my wife and I went on holiday to Malta and on the return journey, at the airport check-in counter, we were politely informed that we had very slightly exceeded the excess baggage limit. How this happened, I have no idea however the young lady behind the counter suggested that we should take some items out of our suitcase and put them in our hand luggage. I could not see how this would be of any benefit whatsoever as effectively we would be taking exactly the same weight onto the plane, but that is a story for another day!  My wife and I proceeded to root through our suitcase, in full view of a very excited queue behind us (what other excitement can there be standing in a check-in queue?), and we tried to ‘discreetly’ transfer some items from our suitcase into our hand luggage. I can’t speak for my wife but I was quite embarrassed and it was not the greatest moment of my life.

In hindsight, the whole event in the airport made me think about ‘excess baggage’, not in relation to luggage but more about the type of baggage that we carry around inside us. Image a scenario where we turn up at an airport check-in, where no suitcases or other luggage allowed, however all of the ‘baggage’ that we are carrying inside is going to be put through an airport scanner and displayed on a screen behind the counter for everyone to see, and weighed. Firstly, how embarrassing would that be and secondly with all of that extra weight it is unlikely that the plane would ever be able to get off the ground! This is exactly the problem that we can create in our lives. We weigh ourselves down so heavily with all of the burdens of our lives, especially the past, that we never give ourselves the chance to ‘fly’ or move on. If, on the other hand we were to hand our situations onto Jesus and allow Him to deal with it then we will find rest; Matthew 11:28-30 ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light’. Amen.

You can listen to the wonderful hymn, ‘And can it be’, written by Charles Wesley, at the end of this article. The words are amazing particularly where we sing ‘My chains fell off my heart was free, I rose went forth to follow thee’ and ‘Bold I approach th' eternal throne, and claim the crown, through Christ my own’. In Christ, let us be bold and confident to know that ‘we are the head and not the tail' (Deuteronomy 28:13) and ‘we are more than conquerors’ (Romans 8:37), we can release the chains of the past that imprison us in the present and deny our future and claim back freedom in our lives.  We need to take responsibility ourselves and not look at others, that is between them and God. We need to leave the past where it belongs, we need to look forward rather than back and only then will our chains fall off and our hearts will be free so that we can rise, go forth and follow thee. We can then, with confidence, boldly approach the eternal throne and claim our crown through Christ our own. Amen.

Author: Gary O’Neill

May God bless and enrich your life

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