“Casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.”
– 1 Peter 5:7
Oh, be encouraged by 1 Peter 5:7 today. And I want to encourage you specifically, encourage us specifically in prayer in just a moment to do exactly this, to think about anything that makes you or me anxious, anything. We’ve looked at this in other passages like 2 Timothy 1:7, God not giving us a spirit of fear, or worry, anxiety, but a spirit of power, love, and self control here.
How are we to deal with anxiety? We are to look to God, cast our anxieties on Him, and know that He cares for us.
How do you get rid of anxiety then? How do you get rid of worry? And the beauty here in 1 Peter chapter 5 is this exhortation to cast all of those anxieties on God. Like to lift them before God, not to pretend that they’re not present, not to pretend that they’re not real, not to pretend that everything is just fine. Like no, we are prone to be anxious, and so to cast all those anxieties on him and know that he cares for us.
This is the remedy that the Bible is giving us for anxiety. What do we do with anxiety? We cast that anxiety on God, and he is able to bear the weight of those anxieties, and he has promised to care for us. So how do we deal with anxiety? We look to the God who cares for us and we cast our anxieties at his feet.
This Verse Trusts In God
Oh God, we do this right now. Lord, in my own heart, in the hearts of everybody praying with me right now, God, we cast our anxieties upon you. Lord, bring to the forefront of our minds all the ways in which we are anxious right now in our lives, in our families, in our work, when we look at the world around us. Like what are all the ways we are anxious right now?
We’re worried, and we just bring all those from our minds and our hearts and we cast them before you right now. And we praise you because our trust is in you and you are good, and you are gracious, and you are powerful, and you are wise, and you are loving, and you care for us. We trust in your care for us, God. We just confess right now. And we are prone to be worried, anxious about a number of different things, to even fear a number of different things. But God, right now we are saying we lay those before you, and we trust in your care for us, and we trust that you will lead us and you will guide us.
1 Peter 5:7 Asks For Help With Anxiety And Fear
So help us. Help us, God, to overcome anxiety and worry and fear in us. Help us to overcome all these things through trust in you, through confidence in you and your care for us. We praise you for your love for us. We praise you for your provision for us. And we praise you for your promises to us. We praise you for your power over all things. None of these things that we are anxious about are too big for you. You are sufficient, God, for everything we need, so we trust in your care.
And help us as we are tempted to be anxious, as we are tempted to be worried, God help us just to immediately cast these things upon you and know, and believe, and trust that you care for us, and you will lead us, and you will provide us, and you will provide for us, and you will take care of us. All our trust is in you. We cast our anxieties upon you. We trust, Oh God, you the God of the universe, you care for us. So we praise you for this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
