It never fails to surprise me how familiar prayers or passages of Scripture can suddenly jump out with a new meaning. Over time, certain words may become well-worn and, as a result, glide smoothly from our lips without registering mentally. Or, perhaps God has a plan to give us a new gift of insight at a particular time in our lives, and so he surprises us with a familiar passage, precisely when we need it most. These surprises should always serve as a reminder to never just assume that we have a familiar text figured out, but rather to always allow the Lord to speak to us in new ways.
I recently had such an experience during Vespers, when the short reading from 1 Peter 5:5b-7 caught me by surprise:
In your relations with one another, clothe yourselves with humility, because God “is stern with the arrogant but to the humble he shows kindness.” Bow humbly under God’s mighty hand, so that in due time he may lift you high. Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you.
In this passage, Saint Peter exhorts us to humility in all of our interactions. We may piously nod our heads in answer to his exhortation. At least I did! Yes, I said, it is so hard, but so important. Yet I found nothing remarkable in this familiar injunction. But wait. “Cast your cares upon him because he cares for you.” How does this relate to everything that went before about humility?
I have heard this passage once a month for quite some time, due to the normal four-week cycle of the Liturgy of the Hours. It always seemed like it did not really follow from what had gone before. Maybe this passage was just from a list of good advice. But as I thought about it this time, suddenly the contrast between being “arrogant” and casting all of my cares on God and allowing him to care for me “clicked,” as it were. Saint Peter did not throw these two concepts together simply by chance. He was making a profound point.
When we are arrogant (and we can be arrogant in so many little ways), we resist God’s care for us, preferring to shoulder our cares by ourselves. When I worry about the things that I need to accomplish or the crosses and challenges in my life, I am in essence telling God that I do not really trust him to care for me—at least not as well as I can take are of myself. When I roll my eyes or grumble internally, when I regard myself as better or more important than those with whom I interact, then once again I push God away as he seeks to care for me. While I may not see it, he has put these people in my life for a reason. They are all part of his plan to draw me closer to him.
But all of this only works if I abandon my arrogance and know-it-all attitude and cast my cares upon him. Yet all too often we cling to our cares, both because we fail to trust that God cares for us and because we use our cares to define ourselves. I am the person who has been through this. I am the kind of person who can handle that. But the reality is that I cannot handle the cares in my life on my own. Apart from him I can do nothing (John 15:5). The kind of person that I am is the kind of person who needs help. But my cares do not define me. I can cast my cares upon him knowing that my identity is that of an adopted child of God. Because he cares for me.
✠
