Cast All Your Care

My journey of being reminded to trust in God was extended into today. I went to read my The Confident Woman Devotional for the day and the selection was about prayer and praying first. The verse that Joyce Meyer referenced was, you guessed it, Proverbs 3:5.6. I just laughed because I know that that verse obviously is what I need to be focused on right now. Not trying to figure it all out or reason what the next steps are but to hand it up to God and trust that He will get me where I need to be. Well if that wasn't enough I read the first four chapters of Nehemiah today. Nehemiah and the Israelites who had been taken into captivity in Babylon were concerned for the city of Jerusalem because it had no wall to protect it from its enemies. Nehemiah was given permission by the king of Babylon to go back and build the wall but he recognized that he needed to pray, repent, and fast before they got started because the reason Jerusalem had been destroyed was because of the people's disobedience. So Nehemiah humbled himself and he prayed and the Lord helped him and the people to rebuild the wall in record time. With God all things are possible!

The devotion for the reading on Nehemiah was about prayer and how we should commit to prayer in every and any situation. In the New Testament Jesus taught us how to pray with the Lord's prayer and we can also draw from how Nehemiah prayed. Nehemiah honored the Lord by worshiping Him and exalting His name and naming His qualities and great deeds, then he told God that He was his servant (he humbled himself), and then he presented his request of what He needed from the Lord and then He thanked Him. Both Joyce's devotional and my Women's Devotional Bible reminded me of the fact that we need to go to prayer first in every situation, no matter how big or how small or seemingly impossible or irrelevant it may be. And then there is a way to pray as well. You have to pray in faith believing that God will do what you are asking Him to do. although He will do it in His timing and His way. Too many times we are begging and bargaining with God about what we need rather than trusting that before we go to Him, He already knows what we have need of and He has the ability to do it.

Then I was reading my New Testament selection for the day which came from 1 Peter 4 and 5. In 1 Peter 4, Peter reminds us to not be surprised if we suffer as Christians because if Christ suffered we should rejoice also in our own sufferings. Then the messages that I have been receiving these past few days were combined simply into one verse, "Cast your care on Him, for He cares for you," 1 Peter 5:7. That was all I needed. The reminder to cast my cares upon Him and to know that He cares about me. I think too often we feel and I know I have felt that God didn't care about me because I was going through such difficulty but the Lord opened my eyes to help me to see that I was not going through because I was bad or because He didn't like me but the very opposite, He wants to take me higher and help me to do and be better. I appreciated the verse from today that reminded me that God cares for me. He wants the best for me and loves me unconditionally. He doesn't love everything I do but He loves who I am.

The third revelation for the day came while reading Worship by Norvel Hayes. Brother Norvel wrote a chapter on what to do when you are desperate. I didn't think I needed the chapter but I totally did. He also spoke about stopping trying to figure our things with your natural mind and to get in the spiritual realm through worship, praise, prayer, and faith. It was a really good chapeter and he used an example that Pastor Gool actually used last Sunday about Jairus' daughter. Jairus asked Jesus to come to his house with him because his daughter was dying. On the way they found out that the little girl had died. Jesus told Jairus to not be afraid but to just believe. He went to Jairus' house and the people there laughed when Jesus told them that the little girl was only asleep. But Jesus sent them away and took the parents into the little girl's room and then told the little girl to get up and she did. (Mark 5:22-43). Jairus probably was tempted to give up the faith in Jesus that he had expressed earlier. Jairus had come to Jesus because he believed that He could heal his daughter. If Jairus had taken the word of the messenger and believed him instead of Jesus he may have not have gotten his daughter back. But in order to get his daughter back it required that he hold onto the faith that he had expressed earlier in the day. Jairus had cast his care upon Jesus and Jesus answered his request by healing his daughter.

So today I learned to trust in God and not try to figure out things on my own, take everything that is causing me distress to the Lord in prayer, and that God cares for me. In the words of Joyce Meyer, "I'm okay and I'm on my way!"