Interesting how we’ve often heard that we should cast our anxieties on God, but not the how!  What does this mean?  Let’s hear from John Piper:

This word “casting” in [1 Peter 5:7] occurs one other time in the New Testament—in Luke 19:35, in exactly the same form. It’s Palm Sunday and the disciples have been sent to get the donkey for Jesus to ride on. Then verse 35 says, “They brought it to Jesus, and casting their garments on the colt, they set Jesus on it.”

So the meaning is simple and straightforward: if you have a garment on and you want an animal to carry it for you, you “cast” the garment on the animal. In this way you don’t carry it anymore. It’s on the animal not on you. The donkey works for you and lifts your load.

Well, God is willing to carry your anxieties the same way a donkey carries your baggage. One of the greatest things about the God of the Bible is that he commands us to let him work for us before commanding us to work for him. “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you” (Psalm 55:22). “Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isaiah 46:4). “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him (Isaiah 64:4).

God wants to be a burden bearer because it demonstrates his power and puts him in a class by himself among the so-called gods of the universe. “No one has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him.” So throw the garments of your anxiety onto him. He wants to carry it.

What a fantastic picture and what a glorious truth!  Anxieties will come, and someone will carry them–either you, or Christ!  Put them on Christ!

(To listen to the entire sermon by John Piper, listen here.)