In a world where we feel we must be right, we must have a voice, it doesn’t matter what others think, and those older than you are irrelevant dinosaurs who will never understand. Paul tells us that in every way we need to live as the opposite to that.

“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” Paul quotes from Proverbs - Jesus set us that example when He gave up His place at the right hand of The Father to come to Earth and die on a cross.  But delving deeper, it’s not just about looking up to those in leadership, or those older than us; it’s about giving up control or the need to know all the answers.

“Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” (v.7) - It’s literally telling us to throw them (like an angler casting a line - they throw it, hard and far, as far as it’ll go and the way the word is used is as an urgent command or direction and to do it often. 

My wife’s favourite phrase at the moment is “Jesus knows” - it’s a good thing to remind yourself of when you’re uncertain how or when something is going to work out.  One person does know and that’s Jesus. His timing and ways are perfect and we don’t need to know until it’s time for us to know and we don’t need to know how it will happen, just that how it happens is in God’s hands. We can trust in that.

Giving up control is so very hard, and lots of our situations aren’t because God has put us in them but because we live in a broken, fallen world that is in desperate need of fixing.

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Prayer:

Father God, please help me to remember it’s okay to give up control, to give up needing to know all the answers and to trust you.  I choose to give up control and to cast all my anxiety to you because you can be trusted with it.  Please Holy Spirit remind me of this whenever I forget. Amen.