Casting our cares

We are blessed to have a fine Christian man as our general practitioner. A thoughtful and caring physician, he has prayed with us many times and lifted our hearts, as well as help to heal our bodies.

I will never forget one instance where he taught me a real life lesson.
As we discussed possible reasons for some symptoms, he asked me what I thought I should do....worry about this whole thing? Nope, I said. His eyes twinkled as he straightened his bow tie and said "You remember I Peter 5:7, right?"
"Sure," I chirped cheerfully, "Casting all your cares upon Him, for He careth for you." (I learned the verse from the KJV, so that is what I fall back on.)
"But what does verse six tell us?"
I had forgotten.....after a pause, he reminded me: "Humble yourselves under God's mighty hand....."
"You be sure and read that when you get home, OK? There's a reason why Peter started off with humility, and then told us to cast our cares upon our Savior....."
And I did re-read it when I got home.
And I've never taken verse seven lightly again.

Many times the scripture verses that we treasure are like links in a chain.... they are connected to other verses that need our attention, too!

So, this week, let's build on last week's study as we focus on verse seven!
There is so much here, we may just camp here for two weeks! (Grin)

We've talked before about the fact that Peter's life would have been steeped in the scriptures that we refer to as the Old Testament. He may have been thinking along the lines of this verse in Psalms:

Cast your cares on the Lord    and he will sustain you;
he will never let    the righteous be shaken. (Psalm 55:22)

Some of our modern day translations moved to make this verse in I Peter very like the one in Psalms.... let me explain. The NIV and the RSV put a period at the end of verse 6, and make verse 7 into another sentence. Look at this carefully:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (I Peter 5:6-7, NIV)

Here it is from the KJV. Compare this with the one above:

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (I Peter 5:6-7, KJV)

See the difference? The NASB and the KJV, the commentaries tell us, don't have a period there because in the original Greek, there wasn't a period! Verse 7 didn't begin another sentence; it was part of the sentence in verse 6, and it continued from there. Not "cast all your anxiety," but "casting all your anxiety." 

It's a pretty significant difference! Here is what I believe we can glean from this: casting our anxiety on God is part of humbling ourselves.
The Holy Spirit brought this to my attention repeatedly as I worked on this verse.
Ummmm, let's say that one more time, because I think it's truly important to our study this week: casting our anxiety on God is part of humbling ourselves.
Casting our cares and anxieties on God is crucial if we are going to humble ourselves under God's hand, and also clothe ourselves with humility toward each other. It's not just something separate that we do after we humble ourselves..... it's something we do in order to humble ourselves, or at the same time. It's actually very necessary.

See, if we are going to humble ourselves before God and other people, too, we are going to feel a bit anxious. Why? Well, humility takes courage! If we think about some examples of humility, it will become a bit clearer where I'm going..... being humble means that when we make a mistake, we take ownership of it and say we are sorry. It means that when we are weak, sick, or inadequate for a task, we ask for help. It means that when we do ordinary jobs and relate to ordinary people we don't look for accolades or kudos.
In other words, humility carries with it the risk of "losing face." Humble people run the risk of not being noticed, not being appreciated, not being praised, and not being rewarded. Lowliness carries with it the risk of being looked down upon.
Oy vey.
Humans don't typically relish these things.
Being looked down upon is painful. Being unnoticed and unappreciated is discouraging. Losing face or being made little of is very painful. So, humility causes anxiety. And Peter's instruction for us to be humble under God, and to be clothed in humility toward each other makes us anxious.

If we are really going to be humble, we are going to have to solve this problem. If we want to have courage and humility, someone is going to have to help us with these anxieties.

Never fear.
God's Word has our answers..... more next time!