1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

I have been involved in dozens of weddings, including my own. I don’t know of any that didn’t cause a few cares and anxieties for those tying the knot. My wife has dubbed them “blue cake” stories. At our own wedding, we wound up with a blue cake instead of the white cake with blue trim we had ordered. Other “blue cake” stories I know involve people showing up late, tuxedos or dresses that didn’t fit, members of the bridal party fainting, tornados causing power outages at the reception, brides lighting themselves on fire with the unity candle, and so on.

You realize that Peter is talking about things a little weightier than our party plans when he tells us, “Cast all your anxieties on him.” The people to whom he was writing this letter were getting a lot of grief from their neighbors and former friends for becoming Christians. Sometimes the persecution even turned violent. Needless to say, this created care and anxiety in the hearts of the people who first received this letter.

Life still brings many cares along with it. Parents worry about their children’s health, safety, schooling, or how their behavior reflects upon their child-rearing skills. Husbands and wives experience anxieties about their relationship: “Can we keep the romance alive?” “Can we make it last a lifetime?” The direction of our careers, the cost of living, health and healthcare, and our physical appearance can all become cares that take away our peace, or at least interrupt it from time to time.

No greater care weighs upon our hearts than the anxiety we feel because of our guilt. Cares and worries themselves are sins which merit God’s punishment, because they reveal that we don’t really trust his promises to take care of us. These same worries eat away at our faith. They undercut our relationship with him.

There is only one thing to do. Throw them all away. That’s not merely to pretend they don’t exist. Peter doesn’t tell us to cast them blindly to the wind, as though they will just blow away. He says, “Cast all your cares on him,” on your God, on Jesus, “because he cares for you.”

He cares for you. Those simple words border on understatement. No one has ever cared for you more truly, or more deeply. Others may make great sacrifices for us through life, but no one will ever give what our Savior has given. Long before we were even born, he had each one of us in mind. He took our sins to the cross with him, took all their blame, and let them kill him so that he could spare us.  He cares. He cares like no one else ever will.

If this God could carry our sins and get rid of them, then there is no burden too heavy for him to bear. Has a relationship hit a bumpy spot in the road? Pile the problem on his shoulders. He can take it care of it. Are we having trouble making ends meet? Leave it to the Lord to lead us to an answer.

We can’t shovel a mountain of problems onto his back so high that he won’t still be inviting us to give him more. We can’t go to him for help so many times that he won’t be eager for us to come back again and again.

At no moment does he stop thinking about you or caring about your needs. Give it all to him: your sin, your worries, your life. He cares for you.