Casting or Carrying? My Choice...and Yours too!

If you have been following my last few blogs, you know that I have become more aware of the enemy around us as we walk out our life in Christ. He and his minions are not so thrilled when we are walking in peace and rest. And so, there are those dark forces around us that seize any and every opportunity to distract us, discourage us, disturb us and cause us to distrust the Lover of our Souls.

This week, our beloved son Jeremy told us that he was scheduled for a biopsy in the area where he had thyroid cancer almost 20 years ago. (Read the story here at Life to Life...celebrating life, love, and a little boy all grown up). His doc has been watching the area for a long time, but the lymph node in question is neither growing nor shrinking. So it's time to check it out.

And so the temptation comes for mom (a.k.a "me") to carry the anxiety of this, visiting the hard past of 1998. After a good cry, "fighting for his life again" prayer, and and a "call" to my "prayer warriors," I remembered:

BUT GOD!

HE comes to remind me that I can carry this or HE can. If I carry it, it will go no where good because my own strength is so insufficient. But He Who lives in me can carry it all the way. (See the last post).

So He reminds me...and you too, O child of God, O sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, O dwelling place of the Living Christ:

Casting all your care upon HIM, for HE cares for YOU!
1 Peter 5:7

Cast your burdens upon the LORD, and HE will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be moved!
Psalm 55:22

BUT...

Cast not away your confidence, which has a great reward.
Hebrews 10:35

Many years ago, a friend copied out this little poem and gave it to me at church. I found it several years later tucked away in an obscure file. It always encourages me and sets it all in perspective. May it do that for you too no matter what you may be facing and be tempted to carry on your own!

It is God's will that I should cast
On Him my care each day;
He also bids me not to cast
My confidence away.
But oh, I am so foolish
That when taken unawares,
I cast away my confidence
And carry all my cares.
T. Baird

Amen