Put Them in Christ’s Bag

“Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” — 1 Peter 5:7 (KJV)

Meyer has a whole chapter about burdens, the worries and anxieties we carry around.

He describes something many of us know. Before we are properly awake in the morning, a voice starts listing everything that will go wrong today: the test, the awkward conversation, the person who annoys you, the thing you haven’t finished. “Ah!” says the voice, “a miserable day will this be.” And we drag ourselves through the day weighed down.

Meyer makes a key distinction:

“God is pledged to give strength for all duties which He sets, but not for the burdens which we elect to take on as well.”

God gives you strength for today’s tasks. But if you also carry tomorrow’s worries, next year’s fears and a hundred “what ifs”, you are carrying a load he never asked you to pick up.

Meyer’s cure is simple: hand them over. “Treat the burden of care as once the burden of sin; kneel down and deliberately hand it over to Jesus.” He suggests praying something like: “Lord, I entrust to thee this, and this, and this. I can not carry them.”

He quotes the poet George Herbert, who said we must put our worries “all into Christ’s bag.” And he asks: if you have ever handed a problem to a strong, trustworthy friend and felt the relief, can’t Jesus, who loved you enough to die for you, be trusted with the smaller things of your daily life?

Meyer also says that our worried faces send a message to the people around us. He says we are either “libels or Bibles”: either we give a false picture of God, as if he can’t be trusted, or we show what he is really like.

Handing worries to God doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine, or never planning. And if anxiety is overwhelming, if you can’t sleep, can’t stop worrying, or have panic attacks, please talk to a trusted adult or a doctor as well. God often helps us through other people.

One thing to do this week: tonight, write down every worry on your mind. Then pray through the list, handing each one to Jesus: “Lord, I give you this.” Put the list away. Each time a worry comes back this week, say: “That’s in Christ’s bag.”