Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

      Psalm 55:22

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

I’m really glad this is in the Bible. And it’s in the old and the new. Anxiety, that feeling that plagues so many people, some constantly, some occasionally, but certainly something most people will deal with in their lifetime. But a word of encouragement…anxiety is something that can only disturb us in this life. As Christians, all anxiety will cease when we enter into our eternal home with Christ. So chin up! This is only something to deal with in the here and now. 

“Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you…” It’s one thing for us to be excited about the reality that God wants us to give Him all of our burdens (not just anxiety), but it is the promise of sustaining power that should bring tremendous encouragement to the hearts of every believer in Jesus Christ. God cares! That’s the main thing that we should walk away with in these passages. But it is this sustaining power, coming directly from the Spirit of God, that keeps us from being overwhelmed by anxiety or anything else that this world lays on us. Listen to the words of Isaiah:

He (God) gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power.Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.

    Isaiah 40:29-31

This is the sustaining power that we read about in Psalm 55. God gives strength to the weary and to those who lack power. That’s the promise. This is one of my life verses and I hope that it is one of yours. Do you want to “mount up with wings like eagles”? Do you want to soar? Do you desire to “run and not get tired”? How about walking and “not becoming weary”? All of these point to the reality that, for the Christian, we have the sustaining power of God living within us. Anxiety is no match for this sustaining power of God. No burden that we carry, in this life, can eclipse the awesome power that comes through a daily encounter with the One True God. Jesus even talks about this:

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus says to bring us the load we are carrying. He will exchange that load for rest…real, spiritual rest…the kind that dissolves away any anxiety or worry that we have. And the “yoke” that we take up as believers? It is described and “easy” (pleasurable) and “light.” Jesus isn’t going to load you down like the world. God will sustain you when you bring your burdens and worries to Him. Jesus will carry them because they are not too heavy for Him.

Paul even talks about this sustaining power, available to born again believers in Jesus Christ. He prays for the church in regards to their being filled with the Spirit. Consider these passages:

(I pray that you would know) what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.

  Ephesians 1:19

…that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man…

    Ephesians 3:16

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us… 

    Ephesians 3:20

For Paul, it was about the people being filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, something all born again believers in Jesus receive at conversion (Acts 2:38). Are you living in the power that God desires for you to walk in as a believer in Jesus Christ? Are you allowing the things of the world to dictate your daily life? If you have already given your life to Jesus then you have all of the resources necessary to defeat anxiety, burdens, failures, others who would attack you, and everything else that comes from the general course of life. Peter instructs us toward the same conclusion:

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

Humbling ourselves before God is essential in receiving this power to defeat the world and all of its trappings. And the promise for humbling ourselves before the Lord?…”that He may exalt  you at the proper time.” What is the proper time? When you need Him! Staying humble before God, claiming the promise of His power (Psalm 55:22, Isaiah 40:29-31, Ephesians 3:20), and we will see His power displayed in our lives. Why? “Because He cares for you” is Peter’s declaration. We can “cast all of our anxiety on Him” and we can “cast our burden upon the Lord” because He cares! 

I’m glad this is in the Bible! It shows me that God expects us to have anxieties and burdens in this life. And it also displays His caring for us in handling these things. Don’t ever feel that you are less than you should be or that you are a second hand Christian because you fail, have anxiety, or carry burdens. Just remember that the power to emerge victorious from all of these things is the very power of the presence of God that lives in you as a born again believer in Jesus Christ. Depend on Him! You will be amazed!

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

    John 7:37-39