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Recently I’ve been having pain in my shoulders. I’ve developed problems with my rotator cuff because I tend to carry things that are too heavy for me.
This is particularly annoying to me because a few years ago my doctor ordered physical therapy for this problem. Of course, I was advised not to carry heavy things, but I tend to think I’m superwoman. My thinking goes like this: “I’m the only person who can do this,” or “It needs to be done right now.” Then there’s, “But it’s really not that heavy.”
My stubbornness gets me in trouble, and I end up paying the price.
Self-sufficiency often increases my burdens.
1 Peter 5:7 tells us to cast all our anxiety on the Lord because He cares for us. My tendency is to give my anxieties a gentle toss and then quickly go pick them up again. This is the kind of thinking is I’ve applied to my rotator cuff.: “I know better. I can do it myself.”
Except I can’t. My self-efforts cause me even more pain.
Casting our burdens should be like throwing our worries into the current of Niagara Falls, trusting they are forever swept away in its power.
Casting our burdens on the Lord means trusting His power. Like the powerful Niagara Falls, He will sweep them away. We don’t ever have to pick them up again because His love is so mighty, He can only do good. While we aren’t promised shelter from life’s storms, we are promised shelter in the storms. We can trust God because of His loving, sacrificial, unchanging nature. He promises to work even life’s greatest heartaches and seeming disasters for our good.
When you give God your problems, imagine them tumbling one-by-one over Niagara Falls and swept into His hands.
This simple visual help me. It helps me think about the power of Go and my own powerless to control my life. Yet my compulsion to control what I cannot or should not can drive my behavior. Standing beside the Niagara River at the side of the falls terrifies me. My husband grew up in the Buffalo area, and I know stories of those who lost their lives in the raging waters. When I think of
Then tell yourself they’re gone because they are, if you leave them in His hands.
Then turn to God in faith and talk to Him about it.
Ask Him for your desire.
Ask Him to work out the circumstances for His glory.
Focus on the character of God and His past faithfulness.
Pray and listen for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
And trust God to control things you cannot or should not. He is committed to your good.
What about you? Do you struggle with anxiety and trusting God with your struggles? How have you handled this issue in your life? I’d love to hear from you.
Sandscribblings 
I struggle with worry and concern for my loved ones who are obviously struggling and headed down a destructive road. I pray but have a hard time releasing them to God. Then I may say things I regret.
I think we all struggle with worries about loved ones who make destructive choices. The issue for me has always been control. My worry (and my efforts to control those I love) are unproductive. It wasn’t until I learned to release my desire to control the outcome and give people and circumstances to God that I found rest. I had to learn to trust God was in control, even when my loved one’s choices were ruining their lives. God still loved them more than I did, and I could rest in that.