THREADS OF GRACE

1 Peter 5:7

One of the wonders of the Bible is that in spite of multiple writers, various historical periods and different cultural backgrounds, there are only a few themes that weave in and out of every book.  We can usefully picture these themes as threads woven into a great tapestry.  Every thread contributes to the final design and color.  And if you begin to unravel the tapestry, you soon find that each individual thread connects you to all the others.

1 Peter 5:7 is one of these threads.  It reads, “casting all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you.”  The Greek is a little more explicit and forceful.  In Greek, the first word of a phrase is usually the word of emphasis.  In this phrase, Peter places the word “all” in the first position.  It is the word pasan.  This word is an adjective that acts like a direct object.  A direct object receives the action of a verb.  The action of the verb is transferred from the subject to the direct object.  Peter is clear.  The implied subject is “you”.  You transfer all.  This is the essence of Peter’s imperative.    The idea that this transfer must cover every anxiety is so important that Peter literally says, “All the anxiety of you casting onto Him”.

So much of the wonder and power of God’s word is hidden in the tiniest parts.  Here we see that the English “casting all your cares” does not quite capture the special significance of this thought.  Notice that the Greek says “all the anxiety of you”.  In the Greek text, Peter uses the definite article.  It is not just “anxiety” in general.  It is the anxiety.  It is the personally identified anxiety that belongs to you.  These are the very specific worries that are yours and yours alone.  Greek has no indefinite article like the English “a” or “an.”  If you want to express a general concept as a noun in Greek, you just use the word by itself.  But if you want to be specific or place emphasis on something, you use the definite article.  So Peter tells us that this is not anxiety in general.  It is my worries about my job and my health and my money and my children.  But Peter’s emphasis is that I should do something about all of these personal worries.

So many times we are tempted to think that God is really very busy with the big problems of the universe.  He has so many people to look after that I really don’t amount to much.  And even if I believe that He does care about me, I start to worry that it might not seem proper for me to plead about my concerns.  After all, Christianity teaches that I should not be selfish.  So, isn’t it selfish of me to ask God to take care of my personal problems?  Won’t God be a little put off by these quite personal problems?

Peter says, “No!”  God asks us to transfer all our worries to Him.  It doesn’t matter how personal they are.  Just hand them over to God.  Let all the worries of your life leave your hands because God cares about every one of them.  This claim is so amazing.  God takes a very personal interest in our very personal problems.  The Creator of the universe is actually interested in me.

Even when we acknowledge the word “all” we have the tendency to reduce its scope to the “spiritually acceptable” concerns.  We are ready to give God our troubles about health, church, getting along with others or employment.  But we are not so sure that God really wants to hear about our worries about sex, lovers, money or prejudice.  Some things just don’t seem to be the kind of worries we can take to God.  Does God really want us to cast our profit and loss concerns on Him?  Does He really want us to throw Him the problems we are having with sexual temptations?  Does He really expect us to let go of our personal issues with family or friends?

Peter says, “Yes!”  Cast it all.  Let life become the simple plan of seeking God first and throwing your troubles on Him.  God cares about every part of your life, even the stuff that you think is not acceptable to Him.

Here is the beginning of another thread.  God’s interest in me is found in an Old Testament word zakar.   Zakar has a wide range of meanings. One group of meanings covers careful and deliberate mental activities such as, “to think about, to meditate upon, to pay attention to, to remember, to recall”.  Every one of these meanings has significance for us.  Notice that every one of the meanings implies an intimate interest in the matter.  God meditates upon us – He brings us to mind in order to contemplate our lives, carefully examining every facet of who we are, arranging His thoughts about us in order to completely understand us.  God pays attention to us – He doesn’t just give us a glance.  He doesn’t just nod our way.  He stops and focuses His attention on us.  He looks carefully to see who we are and to listen to what we say.  He settles down to meet us face-to-face.  God remember us – He brings us to mind as He looks over His favorite photos.  He thinks about the special moments He had with us.  He reflects on our history with Him.  He smiles over us.  God recalls us – He brings to mind the call He sends to us and recalls it again.  But zakar has another set of meanings.  In this second group, the word can mean ““to declare, to recite, to proclaim, to invoke and to commemorate”.  Once again, each of these meanings carries with it a special personal relationship.  We have progressed only as far as the definite article and have already found a cross-thread that underlines the complete involvement of God in our lives.

Now we need to understand what kinds of things are classified as anxieties in Peter’s command.  The Greek word for anxious is merimna.  It comes from an older Greek word that means “a part or share, a division or selection”.  It is literally the fear that I won’t get my share.  The relationship between “anxiety” and “my share” helps us to see why anxiety is so threatening to emotional stability.  Anxiety separates us into parts.  In particular, anxiety is the emotional state of being caught between a part of me that is consumed with some possible future harm and a part of me that realizes my powerlessness to prevent such a possibility.   Anxiety fractures us by pushing the focus of living into the realm of what is not yet real.  Anxiety is worrying about who will watch out for me.  This is precisely why Jesus tells us not to be anxious.  Anxiety refuses to believe God’s promise to watch over us.  It is the emotion of disbelief.  When I am anxious, I say to God, “I don’t believe what you promised.  I don’t believe that you will insure I get my share.  I don’t trust you, God.”

Anxiety is the devil’s zero-sum game.  A zero-sum game is an economic description of a condition where there is only so much to go around.  As each person takes some, there is less for the rest.  In a zero-sum game, someone always gets left out.  There is always more need than provisions to fill the need.  We deal with this type of economy every day.  There are never enough teachers for students, doctors for patients, flights for travelers, jobs for workers or dollars for bills.  Life is the juggling act of how to take care of the most with less than required.  Anxiety is the logical conclusion of seeing life as a zero-sum.  If I don’t look out for Number One, no one else will.  If I don’t get my share first, there may not be enough at the end.  Worry, worry, worry.  What if I don’t get what I need?

Zero-sum denies that there is a God who cares!

Peter tells us that God does not operate on the basis of Zero-Sum.  God always provides the fair share to every one of His children.  The only condition in God’s economy is that He determines the size of each share.  But because God is not constrained by Zero-Sum, He is not miserly or vindictive.  God wants to lavish good gifts on His children.

“OK, so why am I sitting here trying to decide which bill to pay and which bill of hold off until I have money in the bank?  If God wants me to have all I need, why am I constantly short?”  We have all been in some sort of circumstance when we could say, “God, if you really love me, why is life so difficult?”  The answer is found in the basis of God’s choice to provide for us.  God chooses to provide in ways that most serve His purposes for us.  In other words, God has our long-term maximum benefit in mind, and therefore, He is not willing to allow a short-term fix to disturb the long-term gain that we need in order to become all that He knows we should be.

The tension between short-term gains and long-term results is also part of human existence.  Short cuts are temptations to circumvent the process God has in mind.  We are likely to think in terms of quick results rather than gradual improvements.  But this is not usually the way God works.  God has an eternal perspective on change and growth.  His plans look at incremental and lasting change, not at immediate but soon forgotten fixes.

Anxiety is the result of projecting my version of “fixes” on the future.  I see that my plans for my life are frustrated and I want them fixed according to my desires.  But God often has other things in mind; things that are ultimately for my benefit within His purposes but that may not seem to meet my version of my needs.  This is why anxious living is sin. It denies God’s sovereignty.

Jesus has a lot to say about anxiety.  The sixth chapter of Matthew offers a summary.  Jesus tells us not to be anxious for the necessities of life (verses 25 and 31), that anxiety serves no useful purpose (verses 27), that anxiety ignores God’s care (verse 28) and that anxious worry about tomorrow is the futile exercise of displaced priorities (verse 34).

Anxiety disrupts confidence in God’s providence.  It has even more serious consequences for salvation.  Fretful worry about my life can prevent me from responding to God’s call.  This theme is found in the Synoptic Gospels in the parable of the sower.  In this parable, the “cares of the world” (from the same Greek word) choke the seed of God’s calling and prevent the seeds from growing.

Finally, Jesus adds to the catalog of anxiety’s dysfunctional consequences by including spiritual blindness.

Luke 21:34   “But take heed to yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a snare;

In this comment, Jesus cautions that anxiety blinds us to God’s hand in history, so much so that we are unaware of His coming or of the day when we will be held accountable before Him.

No wonder Peter commands us to cast all anxiety away.  Unfortunately, his exhortation often falls on deaf ears.  Human beings thrive on the pitiful disintegration of anxiety.  We seem to take special concern to insure that we live as stressfully as possible.  This is not God’s way.  God may place you in very stressful circumstances, but God does not give you stress or expect you to live anxious lives.  In fact, God promises that you will have peace in peril, confidence in catastrophe and calm in chaos.  How can He do this?  Because life is not in your control.  It is in His.

This thought is so profound that it usually takes our entire lives to absorb it.  It is the critical thesis behind Peter’s command.  If life were not completely within God’s control, we would be the most pitiful creatures in existence.  We would know for certain that we could count on absolutely nothing.  We would know that at any moment blind chaos can strike us down and that there is not one single thing we can do to prevent this.  I don’t know about you, but if I had to live every day with the specter of doom hanging over my head I would choose one of only two rational reactions:  complete and utter abandonment of all constraints, morals or social expectations (and become totally self-serving) or death.  Who could possibly live knowing that life was nothing more than a temporary reprieve from cruel disaster?

But people without God actually do have only those two rational options.  They just refuse to think rationally.  So they go blissfully on under the delusion that life is reasonably predictable.  Then disaster strikes.  Terrorists.  Cancer.  Bankruptcy.  Earthquakes.  Death.  And suddenly they are confronted with the inevitable logic that life is one small step away from random madness.  Unless God is in the picture.

Peter can only say, “Abandon all your anxieties” because He absolutely knows that God is in the picture.  Peter uses the Greek word epirripsantes.  It means, “to throw upon.”  This is not a casual action.  It is a deliberate forceful throwing like throwing an enemy down to the ground.  Peter actually quotes Psalm 55:22 which uses the Hebrew word shalak, a word that means “to throw something away” or “to cast something out or down.”  This is the Greek 98 mile an hour fastball.  Throw it as hard and as fast as you can so that it will never come back.

Don’t throw just a few of your personal anxieties on God.  Don’t toss off the big ones and keep the little ones that you think you can handle.  Or the big ones that you think God won’t handle.  Hurl them all away.  Load your fastball with all the cares you have and let it rip.

It will seem crazy to do this.  After all, everything is life tells us that we have to take care of Number One.  The whole world seems to believe that God only helps those who help themselves.  Anxiety appears to be one of life’s essential disturbances.

But God says, “NO!”  Throw all your anxiety on Me.  Stop living under the specter of “what if.”  God is completely capable of taking care of you.  And even more importantly, He wants to! Can you imagine that!  Here stands the God of the universe asking us to give Him the opportunity to take care of us and we say, “No thanks, God.  I think I better worry about this one.  I just need to give myself ulcers and stress fatigue and back pain because I have to take life on my shoulders.  Oh, I know you want to care for me, but I would rather do it myself, even if I haven’t a clue about tomorrow and I am incapable of protecting myself from disaster.  You see, I want life on my terms.  So I am willing to trade peace of mind for all of this anxiety so just I can say that I did it my way.”

How stupid is that!

Go ahead.  Step up to the pitcher’s mound and wind up that fastball.  Let it rip.  God is there behind home plate.  He’s giving you the sign.  He’ll catch whatever you throw.