cares and a big God

Today I was listening into a friend of mine share the trials and challenges of the last week- and indeed there were a lot of difficult, stressful events. He concluded by sharing how over the last two hours, things had begun to fall into place and now that the storm is calming, he feels ashamed and frustrated for having worried and stressed all week, frustrated that he couldn't "just trust God more."

I thought about this a moment and it didn't sit quite right. I wonder if worry is more like temptation. It's not sinful to be tempted, it's how you act on the temptation that is either sinful or not. Similarly,  we naturally react to situations- physically, chemically, emotionally, spiritually. The stress response isn't always bad either, many times it is the adrenaline needed to move us into action or keep us going until we can rest. The important thing is what we do with our worry, or as the Bible says in 1 Peter 5:7, where we "cast our cares."

To feel stressed and worried doesn't diminish our trust or faith God. These feelings will arise. Trust and faith are shown by where we take our worries, our stresses, our burdens. Do we lay them at the feet of the Almighty, or do we hold them tightly in our little fists, too afraid to hand them over to the Big God who transcends time, who spins the earth on its axis, who holds all resources in his hands, and who DEEPLY loves us.

So be encouraged, worries and cares will arise, you will feel the pressure and the heat. The fact that you feel these things does not measure your trust, rather, it's where you cast these cares that counts.