Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

1 Peter 5:7

What a beautiful, short and simple verse this is! Instead of lifting ourselves up and being swatted down by the mighty hand of God (v6), we humble ourselves and give our whole selves over to Him. We give Him, not only our best, but we give Him our worst. We give Him our needs, our problems, our struggles and our frustrations.

Peter tells us to “cast all our care upon Him.” The word “care” is the Greek word “merimnah” meaning “distractions.” Think of it as death by a thousand cuts. These are not the big swinging blade of our major problems (though He wants those too); these are the tiny little problems. These are the ones we tell ourselves that we can handle on our own, but often we find ourselves outnumbered by them and simply overwhelmed by the accumulation of them.

We need to “cast” those petty problems over to Christ. To “cast” means “to suddenly toss away.” It is a violent and forceful discarding of those little things that get us down. Now is not the time for pride, or stubbornness in thinking we can handle it on our own. We are given the wonderful opportunity to cast our problems over to Christ. Why does He want them? Because, as Peter says “He cares” for us.

The second time the word “care” appears in this verse is the word “melo” meaning “to be concerned with.” We give Him our problems because He is concerned about them. If we could handle them one at a time we might be able to overcome them, but instead we often face them all at once. This concerns God, who loves us and does not want to see us drowning in problems. He cares about us, so he wants our cares.