“Casting all your cares upon Him because He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7. “Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell Him every detail of your life, …” Philippians 4:6 TPT. This could be a good time to reflect on the fact that one of these verses was written by Peter, and the other one was written by Paul.  From what we know about these two mighty men of God they had plenty of opportunities to practise this stuff, even if they did live in totally different locations! You might want to think about why they wrote these things in the first place.

I try to see the cares of this life as being like playing basketball – not that I have ever played that game (!) 😂  I just throw everything over to Jesus as it comes up … that’s in the book … the casting thing… Two things happen then, the problems get resolved or He tells me what to do. BTW, the former is usually something I would not have ever thought of doing! And sometimes, I get to practise my hoop shot over and over again!  I’ve also found that prayerfully naming said cares can be useful, especially when things are a nameless knot of stuff in the middle of your stomach. I do whatever He tells me to do, immediately, and hand the rest off to Him, one by one.

Isn’t Jesus so lovely? He doesn’t want us to wander about weighed down by cares. Relieving us from the weight and pressure of them is one of the ways He shows us He is always there for us. I find that ‘cares’ are kind of like very sticky paper, before you know it you’ve flicked the dratted thing off one hand but it lands on the other one! You gotta work pretty hard to get rid of that kind of darn sticky stuff. It’s the same with our cares, it might take quite a few tries to actually leave what is bothering you with Him. Persevere. Bonus buy, perseverance is a fruit of the Spirit so if you do it enough, you are growing good fruit!!

And if you accidentally get to thinking after time has passed and nothing has happened yet, that NOW you just might find a solution – then immediately send whatever it is, wrapped in love and prayer, right back toward Him and refuse to take it back again. That’s because YOU need to remember you aren’t stupid, and it is obvious that you are going to need a supernatural solution! I usually find I chase ‘solutions’ at  2.00am when I can’t sleep. Eventually (!!) I repent for thinking I can somehow work out that thing I couldn’t actually work out when I was fully awake !!! … And then … I give it all back to Him again. It’s a process.

Paul also tells us not to be worried about anything. Great aim! But sometimes, when you have cultivated a lifetime of stewing on stuff, that can be a hard habit to break. That’s why you have to practice it.  In my family of origin we had a designated worrier — and, oh joy! — it was me! This was decided without any personal consultation with me, so that the other members of my family could be free to enjoy a life without any worry at all – having handed the bad bits off to me to resolve, apparently that was my job. As a result, if you hand me a problem I will turn my brain upside down trying to solve it for you. Obviously I actually can’t do that! And that’s where my spiritual game of basketball has been incredibly helpful. Then I repented of being a rescuer – that’s Jesus’ job.

Back to the book. I also love the Passion Translation of Philippians 4:6 TPT“Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell Him every detail of your life…”  See? I told you those two verses are similar. Here’s how I do my best to be saturated in prayer … I’m working on being friends with the Holy Spirit. I look for the good in things going on around me, and anything that reminds me of how wonderful He is. Even if all I can see is the sky, or a little bit of grass, or hear a bird sing or a child laugh. I wish I could tell you that I pray all day, but I don’t. However, I do my best to keep my mind and heart on Him, and I’ve learnt to cultivate thanking Him heaps as I go along. 

Plus, I refuse to let my inability to be good at something stop me from working on it!  Like the scripture up the top of my blog says: ‘Not that I am there already, but I keep aiming at it!’ BTW, I am also not all that sure about always making faith-filled prayer requests, sometimes I accidentally make complaining prayer requests instead. ☹️ The secret to getting rid of worry and anxiety is to give the situation to Jesus, do whatever He tells you to do about it, and then leave it with Him. He is way more concerned about our past, present and future than we are, and He can be trusted. I simply take these two verses together, and wash them down with prayer! Bye 👋🏻