Casting all your Care​

By Helen Jesze, 2nd October 2015

“Casting the whole of your care (all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all) on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully”

1 Peter 5, 7 — The Amplified Bible

A farmer was driving along a country road in Switzerland, when he saw an old woman with a heavy rucksack on her back walking ahead of him. He soon caught up with her and stopping his horse and cart, offered her a lift. She allowed herself to be helped up into the cart and soon they were on their way again. After a while, the farmer looked round and cried out: ‘Why Grandmother, you’ve still got your rucksack on your back!’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I just wanted to make it easier for the horse!’

What the old woman did not realise was that the horse took the weight of the rucksack anyway, whether it was on her back or on the floor of the cart. The only difference was that ​she ​still had to bear the weight. The farmer had wanted to help her but she only accepted part of his help ­— the ride. We, too, are glad when Jesus wants to help us, but often accept only part of his help. We cling onto our backpack of worries and are weighed down with its burden instead of going the ​whole ​way and. putting it onto ​his back.

God’s shoulders are far stronger than ours. You can ride along in God’s cart on the road of life carefree, letting him carry the load. Some people are not at all pleased when they are reminded that Jesus wants to carry our burdens. They are determined to bear them alone. It is humbling to let someone else do something for us. Our pride and human energy keeps us going for a while but there often comes a point where we cannot carry on.

Have you heard anybody say: ‘I’ll do it even if it kills me!’ The trouble is, it often does! That is not the talk of faith and trust. It is mere human effort and pride in our own abilities; a dogged determination to blindly carry on in the way we have been going instead of gladly and humbly accepting the help Jesus offers us. What have we proved if our worry does eventually kill us? Nothing at all except our own ignorance!

We might even have this Scripture verse hanging on our bedroom wall, but if we are not putting this into practice then it won’t do us an ounce of good. God’s Word is a Book which must be personally put to use. It was never intended just to be read or looked at.

George sometimes says that the greatest distance is not from the earth to the moon, but from the ​head to the heart​. How long does it take for a truth which we know in theory (in our mind) to slip down into our heart (our spirit) where it becomes a reality! You can send a man up to the moon many times in the time it takes for people to grasp or believe a spiritual truth. One lady said: ‘It took me 30 years from the head to the heart.’ That’s pretty slow travelling!

A missionary told the story of a native who came for some medicine for his sick wife. After a few days the man returned saying his wife was no better. The missionary asked: ‘Did you give her the medicine and follow the instructions?’ ‘Oh yes, Bwana. On the bottle it said “Shake well” and “three times a day”, so I shook my wife well three times every day but she’s not getting any better!’

This man thought he was doing right. He was sincere but he was sincerely ​wrong. ​He had not got the medicine out of the bottle and into his wife where it could effect a cure. We too, often make a great fuss about how much we believe our Bible, but sometimes we do not get the truths out of the Scriptures and into ​our hearts​, which is the only place where they will be able to help us.

This verse also states that we are to cast ​’all’ ​of our care and worry. We are not to give Jesus the impossible things while we still drag around the lighter problems. ‘All’ means all​; Jesus will do all the worrying or caring for us. This part of the verse is only possible if we do our homework. As long as the worries are our own property and we refuse to release them to Jesus, there is no way He can undertake the worrying and caring for us.

A voice in the night

A bishop sat by his fireside deep into the night. The cares of a large parish weighed heavily upon him. There seemed no way out of the present difficult situation and worry and dismay tortured his mind. Suddenly a voice spoke to him: ‘Bishop, why don’t you let me worry for you?’ He jumped up and looked round but there was no-­one in the room. He looked out in the passage, but all was still. There was only one person who could have said that. Suddenly he saw his mistake. Putting out the light, he went off to bed and let ​Jesus ​worry for him.

It takes us a long time to realise that if we worry about a situation, then Jesus has no opportunity to work and bring about the answer to our need. In our worry and anxiety it is as though we are clinging onto his hands and preventing them from being free to work on our behalf. The bishop learnt the lesson of transferring his care from his own heart to the heart of his Father God, who was the only one who could help anyway.

We once visited a couple who told us of their need. They had tried to help their daughter who was divorced from her husband. They took care of her two young children, who were shocked and emotionally disturbed by all that had happened, while their daughter worked and then entertained men in her flat most evenings. She had once been a Christian but now wanted to hear nothing of Jesus. The whole situation worsened. This lady told us that she came to the end and said to the Lord: ‘I can’t carry this burden any longer. My health is finished. Do something to change these circumstances, or let me die.’ We could see the effects this problem was having on her.

As she was talking, it again became clear how the enemy tries to draw us into his net until we are completely hemmed in by our need. Then we can see nothing but this impossible problem, and the burden weighs us down. How often the devil succeeds in convincing us that our struggling will solve the problem; that when we worry ourselves to a breakdown, when we can no longer eat and sleep, that we shall see the answer. Our problems will not be solved through our attempts to carry the burdens ourselves, but when we are prepared to cast the burdens upon Jesus! The moment this lady was prepared to cast this burden upon the Lord, then he was able to do something about it.

At a ministers’ conference George met a big, hunky, baseball playing type American preacher. He looked as though he would elbow his way through any crowd. But as they talked, it seemed that he had learnt another way. Suddenly he volunteered: ‘Brother, I’m in the no sweat ministry!’ George must have looked very puzzled for he explained: ‘I used to fight through everything with determination and do things my way. Now I have learnt to cast my worries on the Lord and let him work it out. Why do I need to sweat and panic? He does it better than I can!’ It was good advice. A person who is drowning often clings onto their rescuer in panic and then they are both in danger of going under. In order to reach the shore safely, he must relax and allow the rescuer to take over.

So let’s learn to cast our burdens on the Lord and let him worry for us!

Excerpts taken from the book ‘Winning over Worry’ by George and Helen Jesze

Congratulations on your graduation, Timothy!

The above photo is of our good friends Pastor Francis Waive and his wife, Sister Rita at their son Timothy’s graduation from Wolverhampton University. Timothy has worked hard and just won his B.Sc. with honours, First Class in Biochemistry! During the days they spent with us, they shared that despite many demands on their money and with being tempted sometimes to worry, God has brought Timothy through four years of study – debt free!

Timothy will soon start the second phase of studies to become a medical doctor at Buckingham University, Milton Keynes, and although this is much more expensive, they believe God will provide here, too. It is Timothy’s dream to go and work as a doctor or specialist in their needy country of Nigeria, perhaps in his father’s mission hospital (Fresh Anointing Missionary Ministries).

So be encouraged today, God will make a way for you too, in every situation!

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I bring every worry and concern to you. Forgive me for trying to do everything in my own strength, and not allowing you to care for me. Thank you for the answers, the solutions to problems and the breakthroughs you are now preparing, and that I shall see them very soon! Amen.