Marissa Henley

Encouraging weary women to hope in Christ alone

Cast Your Anxieties {No Matter What Monday}

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For the last two weeks, we’ve been talking about how Jesus humbled Himself to dwell among us and suffer for our salvation. Today we’re looking at one way we can respond to His humility—to humble ourselves by trusting Him with our worries.

You may have read or even memorized I Peter 5:7 before: “ . . . casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” I memorized this verse at Bible Study Fellowship as a young child, and it’s still one of my favorites. But I Peter 5:7 is a sentence fragment. It’s grammatically and ideologically connected to the previous verse:

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all of your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (I Peter 5:6-7).

As we’re humbling ourselves, we’re casting all our anxieties on Him. We hurl our worries from our weak hands into His mighty hand, acknowledging that He is God, and we are not.

Throw your financial uncertainties on Him. He is your provider.

Throw your family worries on Him. He loves your loved ones even more than you do.

Throw your fears for the future on Him. His purposes cannot be thwarted, and He will be faithful to you.

Throw your failures on Him. He saves you by His grace and mercy.

As you let go of your worries and cast them on the Lord, you can have confidence that He will receive them. As verse 7 promises, He cares for you. Your worries do not fall on deaf ears or a hard heart. Your cares are cared for by your Heavenly Father.

No matter what you face this week, cast your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.

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The Lord Will Fulfill His Purposes for You {No Matter What Monday}

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Am I the only mom who hates Chutes and Ladders? It’s the board game that never ends! You finally get your cardboard kid up to the 80s or 90s, and then you hit that giant chute back to the bottom. You might get lucky and hit a ladder or two along the way. But those chutes are enough to make me crazy. It feels like there will never be a winner.

Do you ever feel that way about the Christian life? You start to make some progress exercising self-control over your thoughts or your actions, but then you mess up. You practice kindness and gentleness with your children for a couple of days, but it doesn’t last and your temper erupts. You dig into God’s Word or sit with Him in prayer for a few mornings in a row and then go back to hitting the snooze button.

Little ladders up, giant chutes down.

Psalm 138:8: The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

Today’s Scripture brings comfort to our chute-like moments. The Lord will fulfill His purpose for you. Yes, there will be ups and downs. There will be mistakes with consequences. There will be successes that seem short-lived. But because of the Lord’s steadfast love for you, He will not forsake the work of His hands. And you are the work of His hands.

Each and every one of His purposes for you will be fulfilled. He can even bring purpose to us as we sit on our bottoms at the end of a chute. Even there, His grace will find us.

No matter what you face this week, the Lord will fulfill His purposes for you.

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His Steadfast Love Endures Forever {No Matter What Monday}

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“Would you still love me if I murdered someone?” my son asked recently, and it wasn’t the first time. He loves to push the hypothetical limits and find out whether my love would survive. My answer is always the same: “I love you because you’re my child. Because you’re mine. Nothing will ever change that. You’ll always be my son, so I will always love you.”

I often tell my kids that I don’t love them because they obey or get good grades or treat each other kindly. I love them because they are my children. Because nothing can change their status as my children, nothing can change my love for them. They didn’t earn it, so they can’t lose it.

I desperately want my children to understand this concept so I can explain that God’s love is similar. Except God’s love is even better—it is perfect, and mine is not! I will always love my children, but I don’t always act lovingly toward them. I get impatient. I get angry. I lose my temper. I fail to keep my promises when I get busy, forget, or change my mind.

God loves us perfectly all the time. His love for us is rooted in our status as His children, not on our behavior or accomplishments. We could never earn His love. Christ earned it for us, and He died for us so we could share in His inheritance as children of God. Because we didn’t earn God’s love, we can’t lose it.

His love will never fail you. Nothing you do will ever change or lessen God’s perfect love for you. God’s love is a solid rock to cling to when trials come.

Psalm 100:5: For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

No matter what you face this week, His steadfast love for you endures forever.

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