Casting and Caring

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 NIV

The apostle Peter knew a thing or two about failing, and yet being forgiven. He denied Jesus, not once, but three times, and in front of a servant girl. How humiliating and embarrassing for the one who was the loud mouthed firebrand of the twelve. Then came the time for proof of his allegiance. Jesus asked Peter, not once, but three times “do you love Me?” Was that once for each denial? We don’t know for sure, but Peter’s confirmation of his love for the Master said it all when he uttered the words, “You KNOW that I love you”. Peter was forgiven, and given work to do when Jesus said, “Feed my sheep”.

I can only imagine that Peter threw himself on the mercy of his Master, because he had seen that same forgiveness shown time and time again to the sinners who also knew that Jesus was their only hope. We tend to emphasise the first part of this verse because that’s our responsibility. We must cast ourselves on Him, or to put it another way, we fall at His feet in the full knowledge of our sin and wrongdoing. In that respect, Peter was no different from the biggest sinner who came to Jesus.

But why would anyone do that? After all, humanly speaking we could be sent packing with a flea in our ear! However, deep down, in the heart of each person who came to Jesus, there must have been a recognition that He would not turn them away. I go back to the question why? The latter part of the verse holds the key to our Saviour’s heart when Peter reminds us that “He cares for you”. Everything that Jesus did, and still does for man/woman, his chief creation, is because He cares. It’s that simple. That’s why we can come to Him with worries, cares, and our sin, in the full assurance that Jesus cares. No ifs, ands, or buts, He cares for us. So, when we come to Him in repentance, He will never turn His back on us. Who better to know this than the apostle Peter. His words ring as true now as they ever did.

We do the care casting, but it’s Jesus who does the caring. I like that.

Blogger's Block

You have heard of writers who get writer’s block, well its distant cousin is Blogger’s Block. There is little known about what causes it, but apparently it can be a small thing. I don’t know how you deal with the things on your mind, for my part I tend to write it down. I suppose that makes me a blogger of sorts. Not so much to get a response, but as a kind of therapy to face the issues that mean something to me.

I usually end up writing about matters of faith, because that is the subject that means
the most to me, and in a normal week about 2 or 3 blogs will be written and possibly
published on a couple of systems. Responses are good for the most part, and even those
who would not claim to be of the same church or faith group will be positive in their
comments. So, what has happened during this month’s dry spell?

When something rocks the foundation of your belief system, it drags you down, and in
dragging you down you stop doing those normal routine things. The bottom line is that
you don’t see a way to work through your ‘problem’, and so the Blogger’s Block happens.
Fortunately this doesn’t happen often, and my solution is to give it enough time to
percolate through my subconscious and convince myself the thing I worried about
was never really a problem in the first place. Was it? Or is it still there?

This Too Shall Pass

...weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5

30 years ago, in 1982, I heard a sermon by Godly Pastor Bob Andress, in First Church of the Nazarene, Raleigh, North Carolina, titled “This Too Shall Pass”, and I have remembered it since. Pastors, don’t ever underestimate the words you preach. They are God given and Inspired, and for a purpose. Maybe for very few in the congregation that day, but you always know when a sermon is just for you. I have had a fair few in my time, and this was one.

The application (I always like there to be some kind of application to my life) is obvious. The bad time you are going through will not last for ever. It will pass, just as all the other difficult times before this, have passed. Going through a tough time is not just for a few Christians. We all go through bad times, although some are worse than others, but there is one common thread which links them. They will pass, eventually, just like before. Now and again this sermon hits me fresh, as if I am hearing the truth for the first time, and I am left reassured in the grace of a loving Abba Father God.

This also reminds me of the old Southern preacher whose sermon was titled, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming”. Again the application is clear. The disciples wondered what had hit them when their Lord and Master had been crucified, but at the time they didn’t realise that Sunday was coming, and with it the resurrection. They didn’t know, but we do! Bad days and troubled times don’t last forever, so keep on keeping the faith, and remember and believe that ‘Sunday is coming’, and ‘This too shall pass’.

It’s 30 years later, and I’m about ready to believe in the truth of that old sermon again. How about you? I will leave you with a poem by Helen Steiner Rice:

This Too Shall Pass

If I can endure for this minute
Whatever is happening to me,
No matter how heavy my heart is
Or how dark the moment may be-

If I can remain calm and quiet
With all the world crashing about me,
Secure in the knowledge God loves me
When everyone else seems to doubt me-

If I can but keep on believing
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade with the morning
And that this will pass away, too-

Then nothing in life can defeat me
For as long as this knowledge remains
I can suffer whatever is happening
For I know God will break all of the chains

That are binding me tight in the darkness
And trying to fill me with fear-
For there is no night without dawning
And I know that my morning is near.

...Helen Steiner Rice