Humble Yourselves

Thoughts for the Day, August 3, 2020

Yesterday our message came from a passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This pericope is entitled “Do Not Worry” and has a great deal to teach when struggling with anxiety and worry (Matthew 6: 25-35).  I encourage each of us to read through it this week. 

One of the other verses we considered that is key for our arsenal is 1 Peter 5: 6-7:

 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.(1 Peter 5:6-7)

The reason this verse is a great place to start is that it gets back to biblical basics.See anxiety is often rooted in our worry that things may not  “turn out as we want them to turn out.” The first  part is critical “humble yourselves.” We  must begin by humbling ourselves before our Creator—understanding that He is King and we are his servants. We begin by  asking for forgiveness and giving Jesus everything. We must ask for the grace to trust in him—regardless of the outcome. 

We often miss this part as we eagerly want to get to the second part—“Cast all your anxieties…” The second part only makes sense when we hear Peter’s exhortation, “Humble yourselves…” We can’t cast our cares on him until we have recognized that he is God and we are his servants who have also been elevated to become his children. We will find the weight of worry slowly decreasing as we ask for forgiveness for wanting to control our situation. Humbling ourselves is critically important to the second part “casting your anxieties on him because he cares for you.”