Cast Your Cares
I wonder how many of us are juggling even more balls or cares at the moment, more than we would normally try to juggle. It’s understandably exhausting. We’re not versed in trying to disciple others in lockdown. Doing church without meeting physically is not the norm for most of us. Having every family member back under our roof or being kept from seeing loved ones is not how we envisioned our family life to be. All these cares and the many others, big and small, that we carry around in our heads and on our ‘to do lists’ can be all-consuming and totally overwhelming. I find myself both exhausted and yet wired at the end of each day, in need of deep sleep but unable to switch off the worry about who I haven’t been in touch with that day.
One way I am wonderfully drawn back to the Lord is when I am preparing material for our children’s work. Thankfully the Lord uses the simplest Bible song, a memory verse, or even a craft activity to draw me back to His word. So it has been the case this week. As with many churches, we seek to give our children’s leaders a break over the summer, providing simpler material for the children in those weeks over August. This year we’re challenging our children and toddlers to learn memory verses and one, in particular, has stuck with me. ‘Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken’ Psalm 55 v22 (NIV). I know deep down that I don’t need to juggle all my cares, but do I actually, actively cast them onto the Lord? And yet, here His word tells me to do just that and He will sustain me.
Casting our cares on the Lord is a physical, daily action and it’s not an easy one either. It requires us to hand over control of all those cares and surrender our attempts at being god. And yet, it is unbelievably liberating to take the heavy burden of cares off my exhausted shoulders and cast them onto my Heavenly Father, who can handle them in the palm of his hand. Even better, He will sustain us in this process of casting our cares and He will never let us be shaken or fall as we seek to give our cares to Him. Now, more than ever I want to be sustained by the Lord because I am definitely going to fall if I try to rely on my own for much longer.
Here is the verse to music by Seeds Family Worship Cast your cares
Lucy is the chair of the LMW Committee.
