Casting

I had written a post a while back entitled “Casting Our Cares” which covered the importance of literally throwing or hurling our cares upon the Lord. This post has recently collided with another post entitled “Testing My Words” in which I shared how God will test us on lessons we have learned. I can do nothing more than laugh at the fact that these two things are having a full out head on collision with one another yet again, and I am quite sure this meeting will not be the last time. I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to cast with a fishing rod and reel instead of with a ball and glove. If you have read my post entitled “Worry Wart,” then you already know that by nature I wear that badge quite well, but it is one I wish I could simply throw, toss, hurl away and never to have it return. But as I just mentioned, I cast with a rod and reel, so inevitably I end up reeling back in whatever I have thrown out.

In preparation for our Missionary Ambassador position to Liberia, in West Africa, we have sold our house and made the move to live with family. While I have inevitably seen the hand of Christ in every step of the way and by no means doubt the calling, that does not mean it has not riddled my mind with worry over when we are going to get this thing done, and how are we going to finish that thing all before we have to leave. Oh, and did I mention in the tangled mess of worry comes wrapped around haunting thoughts of insecurities? I have had to rehearse time and time again that whom God calls God equips, and “I can do all things through Christ” Philippians 3:13. The scary part is that my efforts to rehearse the truths of God’s word has not hushed the voice of worry that swirls around inside my head. It is all because I have cast with the rod and reel.

Control issues

What exactly is the difference between the rod and reel and the ball and glove when it comes to casting? The biggest and most important difference is whom we allow having control of the end result! When we cast with a rod and reel, no one has to be on the other end because the control is never actually transferred to anyone. We hold the control to reel back into our hands the worry, anxiety, and strife. So in essence, we never actually get rid of the anxiety in the first place. We are still literally attached to it. When we cast with a rod and reel, our hands never actually become empty. We still continue to carry around the burden that we tried to cast away earlier. And whether we realize it or not we will inevitably reel that thing back in because we remain attached to it. On the contrary, when we cast with a ball and glove we transfer the end result to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one on the other end. He is never going to toss back our ball of worry. And therefore, we are left with an empty glove free from the heavy burden of worry.

Two to play that game

Another difference is the fact that with a rod and reel we could play that game of catch all day and all night by ourselves and never need to have a relationship with anyone else. With the ball and glove, it takes two to play that game. We must rely on our relationship with the Lord. In the natural playing, a game of catch is always better when we have a friend. This is what God desires, for us to have fellowship. We are designed to for relationship! We are not to go through this life on a self-reliant basis because all that does is leaves us holding on to the same old worries we had yesterday. But with Jesus, our hands can be free of yesterday’s worries, so when today’s worries come flying out of nowhere, we can be ready to hurl those at the feet of Christ too.

How about you? Have you ever cast your worries with a rod and reel instead of using the ball and glove that the Lord desires?

Lord, help us to get out of this rod and reel mentality of casting and into the ball and glove mode of casting. You desire to have a relationship with us and that is not a possibility when we keep on pulling our worries right back into our laps every time we try to cast them off. Show us exactly what we need to do in order to keep from holding that old fishing rod in our hands. Thank you, Lord, that you care about our worries, anxieties, and troubles. Thank you for desiring to keep them and not give them back to us. We ask this in the precious name of Jesus.

The Battle Is Not Ours

We so often want to pick a fight when we have no business ever picking anything up in the first place. We want to take matters into our own hands when it was never a matter that was ours to begin with. There are so many battles that are not ours, that will never be ours, that were never meant to be ours, but sometimes we feel the need to play God and fight for things we are better off laying at His feet and letting the Lord do the fighting.

The battle belongs to the Lord

“...For the battle is not yours, but God’s.” 2 Chronicles 20:15 b

Several years ago my husband found himself being yanked into situation that ended up making national headlines. Yes, I did say national! And while you will never find his name associated with any of the news national news reports, his good name was drug through the mud in so many ways it was ridiculous! Actually, it was beyond mud. Tar and feathers was probably a little more of an appropriate picture of the mess that was being hurled at him on the daily. You see, with mud you can clean that off yourself, but with tar and feathers you need some professional help to clean that mess up. My husband had been blamed for all kinds of things that he never should have been blamed for. We watched people turn their backs on him who in the past, had supported him and it was disheartening to say the least. But through it all my husband remained silent to the finger pointing and accusations that he was being bombarded with. He knew that if he opened his mouth to speak that his words would inevitably be twisted and thrown right back in his face. So, instead of fighting back, like he so desperately wanted to, He laid his heart before the Lord daily!

“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”says the Lord.” Romans 12:19

God has can sometimes have a funny way of working things out to bring justice to a situation and yet restore a man’s name to an even better standing than it was before the whole thing got started. My husband was not only justified, but praised for standing up for what was right in the midst of extreme pressure. He faced the tar and feather flinging with more integrity and dignity then I had ever seen from anyone.  Did he have moments of doubt? Yes! Was he scared? Yes! Did he worry? Absolutely! Who wouldn’t be when your good name is being ruined? But when things got really bad, all he could do was set aside the doubt, worry and the fears and cry out to the Lord.

“The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” Proverbs 18:10

All we could do in the midst of the chaos to was run to the Lord because we knew that there was protection there! The Lord never backs down on His promises. My husband and I remain grateful that the promises of the Lord do not return void! I know that if my husband had tried to fight his own battle it would only have tainted his reputation more than it already been tainted. In the end we found that the Lord did not forsake. The Lord had gone before him and brought to light the injustice that my husband had seen from the beginning. The Lord used someone else to bring into light the truth. This was what brought the restoration of his good name.

Call to action

Is there a situation in your life that you are fighting with that really should be laid at the feet of Jesus? The battle belongs in the hands of Christ. I want to encourage you to hand over your weapons that you have been fighting with to the Lord and wait to see what He will do with the situation. Stop fighting and start running. Start running into the protection of the Lord. You just might be surprised with how the situation turns out.

Related posts: My Battle Verses

Related Song: The Battle Belongs To The Lord

Lord, thank you for going before us in battle. Thank you that you are willing to fight for us. Help us to remember that there are times when we should lay down our weapons and let you take over our battles for us. Help us to run to you in our times of need rather than running head first into a fight we should not be fighting. Thank you for going before us, protecting us and keeping us. We put our trust in you today knowing that you are more than able to bring victory to our biggest battles. We pray this in the precious name of Jesus Christ.

Falling Into Place

Do you ever hear a song on the radio and one particular line of the song seems to catch your attention more so than any other part of the song? This happens to me quite regularly, and many times it’s not even chores that pulls my mind to a place of intrigue. It is usually a subtle, unsuspecting line that seems to draw my attention. One of the latest songs that has done this to me is a song by Casting Crowns called “Be Held.” The line that has caught my attention is the line that says: “Your world’s not falling apart it’s falling into place.”  (To listen to this song visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIZitK6_IMQ)

Have you ever felt as if your world was falling apart, being thrown upside down, turned inside out and twisted beyond recognition? I think we have all walked through a time or two riddled with hesitancy and uncertainties. I'm sure we can probably relate on some level to our world “falling apart.” This could come in a variety of different forms, from the death of a close friend or family member, the unexpected health problem, a freak accident, financial hardships, or relationship heartache, just to name a few. Our world can be peaches and cream one moment and within an instant it can take on the appearance of “falling apart. The thing is, God never promised our lives would be a bed of roses. He never promised that life would go according to our plans. His word does say that will face troubles and tribulations in this lifetime (John 16:33).

I woke up the other morning realizing why this one line from this song was continually repeating in my mind. I envisioned myself walking on a gigantic puzzle with millions of peaces all fitting together perfectly underneath my feet. As things seemed to be full of chaos in my life I saw random puzzle pieces falling from the sky. As these random pieces were falling, they slowly began to fall right into the missing holes, perfectly fitting where they were designed to fit. “Your world's not falling apart, it’s falling into place.” You see, we can choose to look at the falling pieces and assume that things are falling apart, but this is not how God sees it. This seemingly random falling apart is actually God orchestrating His creative handiwork to become a beautiful reality. It is God’s perfectly planned masterpiece coming to life! What a beautiful way to look at our trials and tribulations. I have a sneaky suspicion that James had this perspective figured out when he said…

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds” James 1:2

Sometimes we want to rush through things, avoid the hurt and the hard times, make them disappear and not walk through the valleys. What would happen if we asked God to take away all of those difficult times, so that we didn’t have to walk through the tough stuff? Here is the picture you would get. When we get to heaven and look back on our beautifully orchestrated puzzle we will see many holes and large sections of many missing pieces. When we ask God “Why are there so many missing pieces?” He looks at us with tear filled eyes, with all compassion in his heart and responds, “Those missing pieces, all of those holes that you see, are all of those moments you begged me to take the cup from you. They are all the times you pleaded with me not to make you go through the dark moments of life and the trials and tribulations. Those are all the times you asked me to take the moments of hurt from your heart because it was too much for you to bear on your own. In my compassion I took those things from you, but as a result, your masterpiece could not be complete.”  How disappointing that would be to look at this unfinished masterpiece and the only reason it is unfinished is because we would not allow God to take us through the valley of the shadow of death because we were too busy fearing evil when we should have been trusting God (Reference: Psalms 23:4).

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get to heaven and look at an unfinished masterpiece riddled with holes and missing pieces all because of my unwillingness to trust in the Lord with all of my heart and not lean on my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). I want my puzzle to have as few missing pieces as humanly possible!  If we want our puzzle pieces to fall into place with completeness, we absolutely must trust that the Creator knows exactly what He is doing and put our trust in the fact that He can see our beginning and our end and that He is completely capable of filling in all the rest even when it seems like complete and utter chaos. God might give us glimpses of just a small portion of this enormous puzzle at times, but we can never see it in its entirety until we are standing beside the master creator himself. So in the meantime we are left putting our trust in the fact that “our world's not falling apart, it’s falling into place.”

For more reading about God's masterpiece visit: "You Are A Masterpiece", "You Are A Masterpiece (Part 2)", and "Our Creative God"

Father God, I thank you that you see all and know all. I thank you that you have orchestrated every falling piece of our lives to fit perfectly into place. Thank you for being patient with us as we teeter totter back and forth between fear and trust. Help us to land on the side of trusting that you have things under control even when we see nothing but chaos falling all around us. We place our trust in your hands today. In Jesus precious name, Amen.

Worry Wart

“Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

“Consider how the wildflowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.” Luke 12:22-31

I am a worrier by nature. I thank God frequently for my husband who brings such balance to me in this area! Since being married I have calmed down quite a bit, but I still have those moments when I can wear the name tage of “worry wart” quite well. So as I was working my way through the book of Luke and I came to this section of scripture and it struck my heart heavy as a good reminder about the problem with unchecked worry.

I love how Christ uses illustrations we can easily understand to vividly paint a clear picture of this whole area of worry. This passage of scripture uses the example of birds and how they are fed each and every day. As I sit here and write this post I hear the birds chit chatting away outside my window again bringing me a sweet solidification that God is taking care of them and how much more will He take care of me.

I heard it said that “Worrying is like telling God you don’t think He can handle it.” Not too many of us would be willing to look the Lord straight in the eyes and tell Him that He is not capable of taking care of our situations. Yet for so many of us, myself included, we are willing to worry about our problems and in essence we are saying “God you can’t handle this problem I am facing.” Ouch! How this must hurt the heart of our Lord who longs to have us cast our cares upon Him because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). The Lord does not desire for us to carry around the weight of these worries on our shoulders. He loves us too much for that! I am so grateful that I serve a God who encourages us not to worry, but to cast.

Our weapons against worry

According to Luke 12:31 we are to seek His  kingdom, then all these things will be given to us. One of the most powerful weapons we have in this war on worry is to seek the kingdom of God in prayer. We are to seek His face and love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Luke 10:27). When our focus is on the Lord as opposed to our problems our worrying will seemingly disappear.

Another weapon we have in this war on worry is one I have already mentioned. It is the ability the Lord has given us to cast our cares upon the Him (1 Peter 5:7). This enables us to let go of the things that are holding us down. He does not desire for us to hold onto the things that we spend our time worrying about.   

Those two weapons sound like such simple solutions right? That’s because they really are. The Lord has not made this life of kingdom living a complex thing. The kingdom of God really and truly is a simple thing. It’s just that far too often we want to bring our worries, into the picture and instead of getting a clear simplistic picture of birds or flowers of the field, we get our own complicated mess of worry. I know I have brought my complicated mess to the Lord’s feet more than once for the Lord to sort out and bring back to the simplistic place that it belongs. So when you find yourself in the complicated mess of worry, seek His kingdom in prayer, and while you’re there, cast your worries upon Him. This is what He desires from those of us who are bound up in the frustrating chains of worry. The Lord has made it easy for us to be free from our worries. It’s just a matter of us being willing to humble ourselves and cast!

Lord, I thank you so very much you have made it easy for us to be free for the bondages of worry. Help us to remember the simple weapons you have given us to break those chains when we feel overcome by worry. Help us to humbly seek you in prayer and to cast our worries upon you. Thank you that you desire us to be free for all worry!

For more related posts visit: Casting Our Cares

Casting Our Cares

“Cast ALL your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 
1 Peter 5:7

The Bible instructs us to cast our cares and anxieties on the Lord. When we do this, we can be confident that we are handing our deepest worries over to someone who will handle them with special regard. God cares about our anxieties. He takes those things we are struggling with and then He handles our hearts with tenderness. I don't know about you, but I do not want to hand over my anxieties to someone who could care less about me or my troubles. I would much rather hand over my anxieties and worries to someone who loves me and who is concerned with helping me get through them, all while ministering to my heart with healing. It is our responsibility to give them to the Lord. This verse asks us to willingly give up our anxieties. God is not going to take them from us. He expects us to trust Him enough to give them up willingly to Him. There needs to be a degree of vulnerability in our relationship with the Lord in order for growth and ministry to take place in our hearts and lives.

Not Just Some, But ALL

The other part of this verse we need to take a look at is the one word I underlined. It is the word ALL. The Lord is not going to pick and choose from our list of worries only to select a few that He is willing to give us peace about. He is willing, and going to care for ALL of them, not just a select few. What a comforting thing to think about! We can go to God with ALL of our baggage and not worry that He is going to pigeon hole our hearts in the process. He cares for us!

“Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.” 

Psalm 55:22

According to this verse in Psalms when we cast our cares upon the Lord He promises to sustain us. He promises that, if we are walking righteously, then we will not be shaken. Another copyright year of the NIV says that, "He will never let the righteous fall." I love that because there are going to be times that we have troubles in this lifetime that will seem insurmountable, but when we cast them on the Lord He will not allow those troubles to make us fall! We might stumble and stagger a bit and even trip ourselves up at times, but we will not fall to the point that we can not get back up dust ourselves off and go again! What a precious promise! It is so comforting to know that the Lord is watching out for our every step. However, we must do our part of casting our cares upon Him so that He can do his part of sustaining us and not allowing us to fall.

Don't Just Cast, Throw

The word cast in both of these verses means literally to throw or to fling. The image that pops into my mind is Lord kneeling in the catcher’s position with his glove ready and waiting as we are on the pitcher’s mound trying to muster up the courage to hurl our anxieties and worries at Him with all our might. God is already in position to catch our cares. He is simply waiting for us to fling our cares at Him so we can be free. The dilemma is not on God’s end, it’s on ours. We are the ones holding the ball. His glove is empty. I think there are many times we develop stage fright when we step up on that pitcher’s mound. We ask ourselves, “What is God going to think, or does He really even care that I am weighed down with all of this?” The answers to these questions are simple. As far as what He thinks, He loves us and He wants us to share our worries with Him. He does not want us to carry anything He has not put in our hands to carry. As far as God caring about us, the word has told us He cares for us, so we should be trusting Him at his word! It’s funny how this can sometimes be easier said then done.(To read more about trusting God at His word check out "Believe And Not Doubt".) Sometimes the greatest distance is not the distance between the pitcher’s mound and the catcher’s glove, it’s the distance between our heart and our mind. This can seem like an endless chasm between believing with our minds the things our heart already knows about the character of our loving father! We so often want to question instead of simply trusting that God is going to do what He says He will do.

There is a song I remember singing as a child called “I Cast All My Cares.” I have included the lyrics hopefully some of you will know this song. If not, feel free to look it up on Youtube. It is very fitting for our topic today. I love this song, because it is one that we can sing in the times when worries and anxiety seem to overtake us. When we sing this song we are reminding ourselves that we have a heavenly father who is right there ready to free us from ALL of our cares.

I will cast all my cares upon you

I lay all of my burdens down at your feet

And anytime I don’t know what to do

I will cast all my cares upon you

Lord help us to cast, throw, and fling our cares upon you. Thank you that you care so deeply for us that you do not desire for us to carry around weights that you have not put in our hands. Thank you that you desire for us to share our worries and anxieties with you. Thank you that you desire to be our catcher when we are on the pitcher’s mound. I pray that you give us the courage to let go of the ball of anxiety and worry that we sometimes cling to so tightly that our knuckles turn white and our chest starts to hurt under the pressure of these worries. I thank you that it is not your desire for us to feel this way. I thank you that it is your desire for us to be free, and to be filled with your love, joy and peace. Thank you for caring for us so deeply!