1 Peter 5:6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
I’m not so interested in the “Humble yourselves…” part, because many get that. But this second half of the sentence starts with “casting all your anxieties on him” ― which, we can be sure from the Greek grammar here, is a continuation of the “Humble yourselves” part. In other words, whatever “humble yourselves” might mean to us, to God, it means something that includes the casting of all one’s anxieties on God!
So, what if we consider ourselves humble before God, but we’re not casting all our anxieties on him? After all, how many of us are even self-aware enough to know what all our anxieties are? I mean, this command would actually take some brain power applied to it to be sure we were pleasing him as he wants. Sure, most of us believers do cast some anxiety on him, however infrequently. But all of it???
That’s quite a tall order!
So, whatever we’re doing, if we’re not doing this, we’re not quite in the kind of relationship he wants us to be in with him! It reminds me of this verse:
2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
Of course, to some, this last verse might sound really scary and condemning. But if you know just how ready God is to forgive us when we repent of our shortcomings, you see that all that’s really required here is simply to acknowledge the sin, ask his forgiveness, and start casting it all on him from that moment forward!
It’s a life-changer!
