How to Cast Your Cares on God

Posted on by Doug Eaton

You cannot cast your cares on Jesus without a biblical worldview. Often, when we are dealing with a problem that has us worried, a friend will remind us of 1 Peter 5:7, which says, “Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” Though it is a great verse, we rarely know what to do with it. How do we cast our cares on Jesus? Of course, our first thought is prayer, and it is an excellent thought. As we pray, we say something like this, “Lord, life hurts right now. I need you to take care of the problems I am facing. I am casting my cares on you as your word says. Please take them from me.” This prayer is an excellent start, and I recommend it or something similar for anyone facing adversity. The problem is our expectations are often unbiblical; instead of leaving our burdens with God, all we did was give some slack to the rope that binds us to them.

As we walk away from the Throne of Grace, we think, “maybe God will take care of this,” and since the rope tying us to our burden is no longer as tight, we start to feel a little better. However, if God decides not to end our trial immediately, that rope begins to lose its slack. Before we know it, we are dragging those cares around once again. The problem is, when scripture tells us to cast our care on him, it is not telling us to bring our concerns to him so he can make them go away. Instead, it is telling us not to be anxious even while the problems exist. After all, if God removed all our problems, we would have no cares to cast on him.

The verse tells us the fundamental reason we are to give our burdens to God is that he cares for us. Since he cares for us, we must quit trying to be God and trust he knows what is best for us. Our problem is that we tend to think we know better than God how he should care for us. Therefore, we grow restless when he does not remove our adversities.

Refusing to trust God in our trials is an act of pride. Pride is why the preceding verse tells us to “humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. (1 Peter 5:6).” Carrying our own anxieties is an overestimation of our might and wisdom. It says, “I know how things should be, and I am powerful enough to control the world around me.” That is a delusion. Here are a few things you cannot control. You cannot control the outcome of the medical test. You cannot change the attitude of the person at work that sees you as an adversary. You cannot make the needed resources appear out of nowhere. You cannot always change a governing official’s sinful policies. Sometimes, you cannot stop the foreclosure. Sometimes you cannot keep the marriage together, and sometimes, you cannot keep a child from abandoning the faith. Should we work toward all those things? Yes, but we should never do it from the attitude that if things do not go the way we want them, all will be lost. Again, quit trying to be God by assuming you know best what his care should look like. It is futile and exhausting.

1 Peter 5:6 gives us one more reason we should humble ourselves under God’s hand besides the fact that he is mighty. It says to do so, “so that at the proper time he may exalt you.” We are correct to desire to be exalted in Christ, and he has promised to do so; our challenge is that we do not like the phrase, “at the proper time.” We think that if God cared for us, he would do it now. We must understand, not only does God care for us when we are facing hardships, the hardships are part of his plan for exalting us.

Joseph was sold into slavery to save the people of God in a time of famine. King David was laid low with the consequences of his sin with Bathsheba, partly so he would call out to God by writing the Psalms, which are the very words of God and still ministers to us all these years later. And Paul was thrown in prison by a corrupt government so he could preach the Gospel to the entire Praetorian Guard. God’s mighty hand orchestrated all these hardships to fulfill his purposes, and your difficulties are part of his plan too, Christian.

Understanding that God controls the trials he allows in our lives, and the trials themselves are part of his care for us is the only way to cast our cares on him properly. It is the only way to cut the cord that binds us to our burdens. Therefore, cast all your cares on him: personal cares, family cares, work cares, cares for the present, cares for the future, and your cares for the church. Quit trying to carry it yourself. You will break under the load. Be humble and trust that God knows what he is doing no matter what you are facing.

Christian, his heart toward you is one of love and compassion. He loves you so much he died to save you from your sins. You are in his care, and even the trials you are facing are doing his excellent work. Let out a big sigh of relief, cast your cares on him, and rest in this truth. He will exalt you in due time, and the greatest fulfillment of that promise will not be in this life. It will be when we stand with him in glory. Even when God decides it is time for us to face our final enemy, death, know it will be his love and care in action bringing us home to be with him forever. We must continue to grow in the biblical understanding of our great God and his sovereignty over our lives. That is the only way to cast our cares on him.

-D. Eaton

8 thoughts on “How to Cast Your Cares on God”

  3. Pingback: How to Cast Your Cares on God - The Aquila Report

  4. Well-meaning friends and family will say “cast your cares on the Lord” when trying to offer an encouraging word during a trial, but no one really explains HOW to do so! This really breaks it down and has helped tremendously. THANK YOU.

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  5. Thank you. This is very encouraging. A great reminder that He is in control of all things and still, He cares for us greatly!

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  7. I have just recently discovered your website, and am appreciating how you address the heart of spiritual matters. From someone who has truly, by the grace of God alone, been able to cast my cares upon Him, this article really hits the mark. A few things have been key in a long process of giving my child and his salvation up to God: prayer (every time I was anxious, persevering until God’s peace came), a deep love of Scripture and God’s promises, and Precept Bible studies that have increased my knowledge of God’s attributes (sovereignty, wisdom, immutability, etc). And, like you said, trusting the trials themselves are part of His care (Romans 8:28). Through this God has given me the peace that surpasses understanding. I am amazed every time I think about it, because as a type A personality, it is definitely ‘not me’. No matter where my fears go, God is bigger, and He’s got this. But it still requires constant refocusing of our attention on Him, not circumstances (think of Abraham’s faith). I totally agree with your conclusion: We must continue to grow in the biblical understanding of our great God and his sovereignty over our lives. That is the only way to cast our cares on him.

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  8. This is all very well and good and pretty and sounds like a great thing to be able to do but actually doing it when you’re facing the worst thing in your life that you ever had to face is near on impossible, at least from me. My husband died 3 months ago. Very unexpectedly, very quickly, after only 3 weeks of being diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer that was untreatable. I’ve done so much wrong in my life how can God love me, why would he want to help me? And yet I know for a fact he has helped me so so very much throughout the years I can point to those times, I can remember them clearly and I will never forget them. Which brings me to my situation now. Throughout my 43 years of marriage my husband and I didn’t always treat each other very nice. We actually cheated on each other. I couldn’t even tell him when I did it because I was afraid he’d leave me and I couldn’t deal with that and I swore it would never happen again and it didn’t. However now that he is dead and he knows what I did, I struggle with believing he will forgive me even now that he’s gone. I can’t even forgive myself. And then there was the way we treated each other in the last couple of years before his death was stupid. Stupid little things like if one of us didn’t wash up our dishes after each other it could lead to a major fight sometimes. He would always say he was sorry, he didn’t mean it, and he didn’t know what came over him at times. I always forgave him and he always forgave me. We would say mean things to each other like we wanted each other to leave and never come back. But after an hour of stupid stewing, we realized we didn’t really mean that. I know if he meant it or if I meant it we wouldn’t have stayed with each other. But we always wanted to work it out. I always thought after 43 years of marriage it would get easier and we wouldn’t have stupid fights over stupid petty things. I was wrong and I struggle with the fact that does anybody else argue over stupid things and regret it? My biggest problem now that he’s dead, I realize how stupid and petty it was. And I wonder if he forgives me still. I wonder if he loves me still. And because I feel so unworthy of his love, I subsequently feel unworthy of God’s love and forgiveness. I am going around in circles thinking if my husband still loves and forgives me, then God loves and forgives me. And conversely, I feel if God loves and forgives me then my husband loves and forgives me, even though he’s gone. When my husband was alive, he was always able to make me feel loved and wanted. He was the one that gave me strength to trust God and to hang on. He was the one that was always able to say; there’s nothing I can do about it, God will take care of it. And that always happened. Now that he’s gone, I wonder where my strength is going to come from to keep on believing that God loves me and forgives me and wants me to be happy. Even after all the times I saw God’s help, during my cancer and recovery, during the death of all my family members, he always gave me the strength to ‘keep on’. But now I wonder; did I ‘keep on’ because I trusted God or did I ‘keep on’ because I trusted my husband? I’m ashamed that I’m so weak. How can God love anybody that’s so weak? I don’t know if this will ever get better or will I continue on this roller coaster? Am I losing my mind? Am I losing my faith? Did I ever have faith to begin with? I’m so afraid now that I’m alone. And some days I feel God’s presence and I feel everything’s going to be okay, but then I remember my husband’s dead and nothing is ever going to be okay again. At least I don’t feel that it will right now. And I keep praying that I feel that it will get better. And above anything else, I really want to feel my husband’s presence. I just want him to ‘tell me’ everything is going to be okay again. It’s happened to people before. Their deceased loved ones have come to them in a dream that felt so real and told them that they loved them and everything was going to be okay, so why won’t it happen for me? I’m sorry I’m so weak. I’m so needy. I’m so insecure. I’m so lonely and afraid of being alone and feeling like this forever. Grief counseling hasn’t really helped so much so far. But I’m hanging on to hope that it will help me. I guess I just wish it would help quicker than it is.
    Thank you for letting me dump like this. Strangely enough when I write it all down, it does seem to help alleviate some of the pressure for a while.

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