Let Go (is an incomplete sentence)

I am and always have been a worrying saint. But I am very conscious that those two descriptions don't belong in the same sentence. I can't and don't want to change the saint part. But I'd sure like to change the worrying part.

I think sometimes about the verse in I Peter that commands me to cast my cares upon Christ. A chorus we sometimes sing paraphrases the verse like this, "I cast all my cares upon You, I lay all of my burdens down at your feet..."

That picture of laying whatever worries me at Jesus' feet is one I've carried in my mind for most of my life. It's a picture of letting go. Giving up. Refusing to worry any longer. For each of these concepts, all required by the verse, it is a good picture.

What the chorus doesn't fully illustrate is the second half of Christ's command--the part that is an indirect promise. We give, He takes. He doesn't, after all, stand passively by with an ever-growing pile of my cares at His feet.

No, for He takes it and looks after it from the time I let go ever afterwards...as His own burden. Instead of me. In every way as concerned about its final conclusion as I could be.

And I still go to all the trouble of worrying?