Lightening the Load

“So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” –1 Peter 5:6-7 (NLT)

“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” –1 Peter 5:6-7 (NAS)

These two verses are vitally important in the life of the Christ follower. If we are going to live our lives out as Christ’s ambassadors, then we need to learn to allow Him the opportunity to lighten our load…and especially the load of worry.

When I became a dad, my worry level increased exponentially (those of you who are parents know what I’m talking about). And when each of my other children were born, more and more worry was heaped into my lap. But the beauty of these verses is that all of that worry doesn’t need to be mine, because I can give it to Jesus.

The word that Peter uses here is a word in Greek that really means “to superimpose”. It means very basically to superimpose your worry over Jesus. When we superimpose an image, we can see both at the same time. This is what Peter is getting at…he wants us to look at our problems, our worries, in light of who Jesus is.

The dictionary definition of the word “Superimpose” is “To place an object over another object, usually in such a way that both will be visible.”

Now think of it this way. If I were to try and superimpose the object the size of the earth over an object the size of the sun, would both still be visible? In truth, if we did that and pulled the picture back so far as to see the full circumference of the sun, the earth wouldn’t be very visible at all, would it?

Now think of the size of your worry, and then superimpose that on the size of your God. As you pull out to see just how big your God truly is, do you even see your worry anymore? Nope! You don’t…and that’s the point. When we see our worry next to our God, we don’t see our worry anymore.

So think about that today, and we’ll see you on Sunday!