Cast Your Cares

In our walk, there are troubles all around. They beat down at our door and scream for us to allow them footing in our lives and hearts.
In this past season, problems, struggles, and hardships have most certainly been allowed to take huge influence over me and the decisions that I make. I've felt alone, afraid, and abandoned. From my heart has come the cry of David, "Where are you God?"

It's in those moments that we think, "Didn't God say that He wouldn't give us more than we could handle?" Unfortunately the Bible doesn't express that.
What we find in the Word is this scripture:

1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

He won't allow more temptation than we can handle. But struggle, trial, hardship; that's a different matter.

2 Corinthians 1:8-10
For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

"But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God."
There's the truth of the matter. We will be given more than we can bare. We will have to endure through a struggle greater than our ability to persevere through.
That's the beauty in the struggle though, we have to rely on God.

1 Peter 5:6-7
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.

It has never been a question as to whether God will be there for us, He wants to exalt us, He wants to care for us more and more. The requirement to allow this to happen is for us to
1) Humble Ourselves
2) Cast Our Cares Upon the Lord
3) Rely On God

In humbling ourselves we come to understand that we cannot save ourselves or others. We cannot figure out and control ourselves. We can learn discipline and acquire wisdom, but we must come to the realization that we cannot do it without God. If we try, we will fail and fail again.

To cast our cares upon the Lord means that we take the worries and struggles that we are enduring and place them into His hands. This can be seen in relationships, in giving God the reigns and realizing that He alone can take care of them and save them. Also we see this in giving our time to Him. If we spend our time trying to "soul seek" and looking constantly on who we think we are, we'll most likely only make it worse. But if we seek God than we are becoming more like Him and thus becoming who we were designed to be in Him.

Finally, relying on God is key. The passage says, "For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself." In this Paul is saying that they had nothing left to give and no where else to go, they had to turn to God or it was death. And in relying on God they were brought through that time of feeling that they "had received the sentence of death." God rescued them.

He wishes to do the same for you. And not just in a huge way where He comes down on a white horse to bring you home (though He does want to and will do that), but also is small everyday situations. In your conversations, in your workplace, at school, in church, when you're alone, He wants to save you and bring you higher in every one of those moments. All it takes is, "Yes, Lord."