“Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”
Years ago I taught a poetry elective to some high school students. One of the things that I had them do was memorize some famous lines of poetry, but instead of leaving the line as a stand alone, memorize the surrounding verses. It often adds quite a bit of understanding to the whole thing. Surprise surprise, most often these things have context, and the context adds something rather valuable.
This verse about bringing our cares before God is exactly one of these sorts of events. Let’s look at just the line before it –
“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”
And just one half verse before that: ” for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”
So today I am at the grocery store. Just for a couple things, which is good, because I only have a couple of minutes. I am mostly behind on my life by about a day and a half. In some places more, but I am ignoring those. My back hurts, which happens whenever I haven’t had time to go to the gym. I am stupid tired, which could have been avoided by not staying up stupid late. But nothing is really wrong. I love my job of being a mom, love my kids, love my husband, and yet here I am fussing it up in my head. Not because there is anything objectively wrong, but because that is what I feel like doing.
If afflictions were a soda fountain, I have made the ill-judged “suicide” of my youth. Just a squirt of tired, with a squirt of busy, with a squirt of behind, with a squirt of sugar-free attitude. And what I want is to feel bad about the nasty drink that I have before me. Root beer doesn’t blend well with raspberry iced tea. It just doesn’t.
Now because my husband is wise and also loving, with a side of excellent timing, he chose to text me a verse and tell me to pray for grace. So here I am, standing in the Band-Aid aisle trying to sort out why I so badly don’t want to. I want to shrug it off and say it wasn’t a big deal. I want to have a solution all by myself. What I want is to find a garnish for this wretched drink I have made that will make it all somehow palatable. What I apparently don’t want is to tell God that my drink is bad and ask him to fix it. I was over there at the soda fountain pumping it into my cup with enthusiasm, and I don’t want to admit that what I have whizzed up is not tasty.
So I had a laugh at myself amongst the Band- Aids and prayed about it. Because being tired isn’t a sin, but being ugly is. Being behind isn’t a sin, but being annoyed by it is. Being busy isn’t a sin, but being self absorbed is.
The thing that really struck me is that I didn’t want to ask God to take it away. I did not want the grace that He has promised to provide us. I wanted to just handle it myself – maybe with a coffee, or with lunch. Maybe with getting on top of the next thing I have to do, by blowing it out all by myself. And yet. God resists the proud.
But the humble, the humble will get His grace. So I came home and looked up this verse. And I laughed again, because Grace is joy.
“for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”
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There you go again, intuiting exactly what’s going on in my head.
I’m sitting self-absorbed about my suicide cocktail with a coffee and about to start a “brain dump” list about all the things I’m failing miserably at. You mean that won’t help? Sigh. My Bible is waiting for me. I’ll go there instead.
Thank you so much for this… My lil guy is turning one this weekend and I’ve been reading your stuff since last January. For the last couple weeks he hasn’t been sleeping well, due to a low grade fever… In turn I am exhausted, and behind, and tired of trying to reign in yucky emotions that I would rather just wallow in. And I usually don’t ask for Grace, I try to scratch something off my list instead… It’s hard to ask for Grace when you made the yucky drink yourself!! Good news is, Jesus loves me enough to convict me with this!! Thank you 🙂
Love this. I have days where I not only want to cling to the nasty drink of attitude I have, but want to save it all day so my husband can see how put-upon I am by having it.
I’m a giant corn dog some days, too. Today, for instance. Thanks for the timely post!
That. Was good. And convicting.
Whipped up that drink myself today. Cried and had a big ol’ pity party with myself instead of just being humble and admitting to God that I can’t do it all and I needed His grace to meet all the needs of my anxious heart. Thank you for being transparent and ministering to women through your honesty.
Thanks for the reminder! Spot on.
Wow. So needed this today. Thank you for posting.
Thank u!
Thank u!
“tell me to pray for grace. So here I am, standing in the Band-Aid aisle trying to sort out why I so badly don’t want to. I want to shrug it off and say it wasn’t a big deal. ”
ZING! Right between the eyes. Ouch.
Just curious about the picture…is that to illustrate your point that context is everything?
“….being tired isn’t a sin, but being ugly is. Being behind isn’t a sin, but being annoyed by it is. Being busy isn’t a sin, but being self absorbed is.”
Oh, this so describes the week (month?) I’ve just had…thank you for putting into words what has been wrong, that I’ve been puzzling over a little and trying to ignore and excuse a lot.
Oh thank you Rachel. Thank you.
Being on bedrest has tempted me into the “ugly” and I need to pray for more grace. In short, I need to be re-reading this a lot over the next week until my restrictions are lifted. God used you and your words to be bring grace to me in a rather ugly moment, and to remind me to shed the ugly scales on my eyes. Thank you.
Thanks so much for the much needed reminder this week. Its been ones of those hard weeks where much repenting has had to happen. So thankful for loving and patient husbands!!!!
Sigh ….I needed this, I just found out I’m pregnant again and feel SO overwhelmed and behind
Sara-
I just found this picture and thought it sort of summed it all up. Giant corn dogs + “I dazzle” t-shirt makes me laugh, kinda like my skunky attitude….