Happy December, everyone!
The last few months have been filled with holiday celebration, sports, time with friends, and inevitable Fall sickness.
The most exciting news we have to share is that we are expecting our Baby GIRL in the Spring!
This pregnancy is flying by with chasing after two energetic boys, and I find myself stopping and wondering how a little girl will fall into the mix. We are overjoyed with this blessing God’s entrusted to us, and are so excited to welcome her in a few months!
This pregnancy has not been the smoothest, though we’ve certainly had rockier.
As I’ve been trying to navigate through my emotions and mindset as different unexpected pieces keep coming up, I find myself diving whole-heartedly into the truth of 1 Peter 5:
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7 (ESV)
This verse makes me think of my two-year-old, JJ.
Whenever he gets hurt, he comes running over for a kiss to make it better.
No matter when or where. Just a few days ago, he came out of the church nursery shouting, “Mommy, kiss my butt!” Which I’m positive raised a few eyebrows around us.
My sweet boy will come to me for a kiss regardless of the severity of the injury. Sometimes I don’t even think it hurt him or I didn’t even notice anything happened and he will come over and calmly point to his head or finger and wait for a kiss to make it better.
Other times, his boo-boos are a lot more intense.
A few weeks ago, we were walking around a college campus that we frequently wander through here. JJ was happy and giggly, running ahead of me free as a bird.
Until, per usual, he fell.
He got tripped up and his knees caught the pavement.
He immediately burst into tears and came running towards me. Through trying to catch his breath between crying and snot running down his face, he points to his knee and says, “Kiss, mommy” and waits eagerly for me to kiss his scrapes. This particular time it was bleeding down his leg and in my mind I thought you don’t need a kiss buddy, you need a Band-Aid.
But, I kissed it anyway and to my amazement he wiped the snot off his face, hopped back up and went right back to running.
As he ran away with a great big smile on his face, I started thinking of this verse in 1 Peter.
JJ truly casted his cares on me.
He came to me sobbing over the thought of them, and then walked away without them.
Because he trusted I’d taken care of it. He trusted that I care about him and will take care of him.
He was still bleeding and I’m positive the sting of dirt in a fresh cut was still very much felt with each step he took.
His problem hadn’t disappeared.
However, his anxiety over his problem had.
When you cast your fishing line with hook and bait into the water, it’s still most likely coming back to you, right?
But you’re expecting it to come back different from how you cast it in there. Or else you wouldn’t have bothered casting into that area in the first place.
The same should be true of us when we cast our anxieties on God.
We should fully expect them to rest on us differently. They won’t always go away in an instant. Most of the time, after we say ‘amen’ and open our eyes, nothing looks any different about our situation.
Just as JJ’s knee still bleeds and his bruises still show up later that evening in the bath.
But his attitude and mindset towards that injury had completely changed. He was no longer stuck on it. He no longer let it keep him from moving forward with what he needed to do next.
My situation doesn’t change after casting my anxieties over it onto God, but the way I hold onto it does.
Some times I find myself reeling back in what I previously had casted out to God and needing to cast it out to Him again. It is very possible to cast an anxiety out to the Lord with every fiber of your being…and then the next week find that in the midst of rough waters, or even impatience, you’ve reeled it back into your own boat again.
This is where the first direction of this verse becomes so crucial.
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7 (ESV)
Humble yourself.
It’s a lot easier for me to cast a new anxiety on God than it is to cast a repeated anxiety that I’ve already said I’ve given to Him and yet again find myself needing to give it over to Him again.
Why?
My pride gets in the way.
The opposite of humility is pride.
The very thing keeping us from going to Him, is so much deeper than just thinking we can handle it ourselves. It’s refusing to humble ourselves before our all powerful, all mighty God who has asked us to humble ourselves before Him.
Continually casting our anxieties on Him is continually laying down our pride and our desire to fix it ourselves, and admit to Him that we are weak and need His strength.
And the best part is He is not only capable of receiving our anxieties, He is so qualified and safe because He cares for us.
Do you think a day ever comes when JJ comes up to me with tears streaming down his face over the 17th boo-boo he got in the last hour and I refuse to kiss it?
Absolutely not.
Even picturing that kind of rejection towards a child standing in front of you seems harsh and wrong.
Because it’s a given that I love him and I will never shoo him away when he comes to me to take care of him.
It may not always be in the exact way he would want me to, but I will always take care of him.
If limited mothers navigating caring for their little ones on this earth know to care for their young children who come to them, how much more will our unconditionally infinite God take care of us, His children, whenever we come to Him?
IF we can just humble ourselves before Him enough to bring our anxieties to Him and leave them there, fully expecting them to come back to us differently.
Is that your heart towards casting your anxieties on God?
Do you lay them at His feet expecting them to rest back on you lighter and differently because you trust that He cares for you?
Or do you find yourself throwing your anxieties out on the water just to reel them right back in and worry over how you will take care of it yourself?
From one of His children to another,
Christi