For the last two days, we’ve looked at how repentance is a hallmark of meditating and what it means to humble ourselves and surrender our own kingdom in an effort to truly connect with Jesus. Today, I want to introduce you to another component of practicing meditation (again based on 1 Peter 5) — casting your cares.

First of all, I want to clarify that anxiety is not a sin, and Peter doesn’t tell us to cast our cares because it’s evil to have them. He encourages us to give them to God because He alone knows how to handle them — much better than we do! It may surprise you to learn that the Bible talks a lot about anxiety, and that the Greek word for the concept is marimnao, which carries with it the idea of being pulled apart, stretched, or broken up. Think of a wad of dough that has risen and you pull pieces off of it to make pretzels or rolls. Or maybe you have a hunk of meat and you pull it apart to create some kind of stew. In either scenario, the idea is the same — something that is whole is getting broken into pieces. Isn’t this an interesting visual of how we feel when we are stressed? We may perceive that we are being pulled in different directions and that there isn’t enough of us to go around. Or maybe we are being stretched so far we think we’re going to break. In any case, it’s not good to live under this kind of pressure!

Friend, when you’re stressed beyond what you think you can bear, Jesus wants you to cast your anxiety on Him. Yes, it is a spiritual discipline and it requires training your mind, but doing so will make your life much better. You have a Heavenly Father who is infinitely strong and powerful, and there is nothing you can throw at Him that He cannot bear the weight of. Better yet, as you focus on His strength and sufficiency, He takes those tensions and ultimately turns them into triumphs! Isn’t that wonderful news?