What do you do when you're tempted to let the cares and worries of life bog you down? What do you do when the walls of unpleasant, uninvited circumstances are crashing in all around you?
Notice the text in 1 Peter does not read that God is to humble us. Instead the command from Peter is that we are to humble ourselves.
I believe that Peter makes this statement with the assumption that the believer knows that they accomplish this by living out of their union with Christ. Since Christ has already humbled Himself by dying on a cross, Phil. 2:8, we too can share in His humility by resting in His finished work.
Humbling oneself is a recognition of the worth of the person we are humbling ourselves before. I believe that humility and resting go together. In the context of burdens and worries, humbling is resting in who I am, human; and resting in who He is, Divine.
Humbling ourselves is not just for Him, but for us. It slows us down enough to recognize His greatness and our need, instead of staying in the busy mindset of trying to work out our cares and worries on our own.
It's not about religious duty or how to get out of life's unpleasant circumstances. But an intimate relationship of living in and through life's unpleasant circumstances, while living out of our union with Jesus Christ.
So the command is not really a command to do, it is a command of sharing in His Life, a Life that produces humility and surrender. What a joy and a blessing from God to live from our identity and union with Christ.
Then Peter goes on to use the phrase "under the mighty hand of God".
Seeing ourselves as we truly are, under His Lordship and control, allows us to approach our lives with an attitude of surrender and humility. Then, in exactly the right time, God will lift you up. He may choose to lift you up and out of the bad circumstances or He may choose to lift you up and leave you in the bad circumstances. Either way, we have the wonderful invitation from Father of getting to know Him more intimately.
Then Peter says, "To cast all our cares on Him".
See friends, we're going to be tempted to handle our cares and worries out of our own resources and strength. We all have polished coping mechanisms and survival strategies that we have learned over the years to turn to, in order to meet our legitimate needs in illegitimate ways.
Father asks us to cast or throw those cares into His loving arms instead. Why? Because He cares for you so deeply. Caring has to do with intimacy and closeness. Not a general feeling about someone or a condescending emotion. But one of knowing intimately.
While we humble ourselves by His grace, He extends even more grace to us by caring for us and about us. This is the One who says, I care so deeply and love you so fully, that I even know the number of hairs on your head.
After all He has done for us, He could just command respect and submission. But He understands us, our limitations and the fact that things can so easily entangle us. As the Psalmist said, He knows our frame, that we are only dust! Therefore, He desires for us the wonderful opportunity of believing and trusting in a loving, intimate Father.
So my dear brothers and sisters, will you choose to humble yourselves under His mighty hand by casting all of your cares and worries into His loving arms?
Peter finally ends this wonderful appeal in verse 10 with these resounding and reassuring Words from Father's heart. Enjoy the promises from Father, to you, His precious child.
"In His kindness God called you to His eternal glory by means of Jesus Christ. After you have suffered a little while, He will restore, support, and strengthen you, and He will place you on a firm foundation." Amen!
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