PUT A HOOK IN IT!

Our home sits on the south side of a little lake—and I do mean little. The lake is just a few acres in size and is owned and maintained by our neighborhood association. My home office looks out over the lake and as I work, I love to look out the window and occasionally daydream.

In the eight years we have lived here, I have watched countless times as dads have brought their children to the lake’s edge and begun the process of teaching them how to cast a line into the water. Casting is a skill that does require a little bit of learning. At first, very few are able to throw the baited hook very far out into the water. More often, after a mighty heave, it lands right in front of them and sometimes even behind them. Some of the children get frustrated and after a few tries with little or no success, they put the rod down and go do something else. Others keep trying and slowly the skill begins to take shape, and they begin dropping their hooks out into the water where the fish live.

The Bible teaches us that we need to learn a “casting” skill as we grow up in our relationship with Christ.

“Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

“Cast your burden on the LORD, And He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved” (Psalm 55:22).

I have to confess that I struggle with this. I find it difficult to release an anxiety, to put it over on Jesus; I’m better about it than I used to be but I still struggle with it. Does “casting our care on Him” mean that we just erase it from our mind? How can that be? Are we supposed to forget about the sick loved one, or the financial need that is pressing us for a solution? Is the Bible suggesting that we embrace an attitude of irresponsibility? I don’t think that’s what it means at all.

I believe the Bible is telling us to stop carrying the burden alone; put it down; don’t forget about it but stop obsessing about it and feeling that no one else is aware of what you are facing.

In his classic book, God’s Cure for Worry, Guy Mark Pearce tells the following story. Pearce was out driving on a hot summer day when he came across a woman walking beside the road, carrying a heavy basket. Pearce stopped and offered the woman a ride which she gratefully accepted. After the lady was seated, Pearce noticed that she continued to hold the heavy basket in her arms. “Your basket will ride just as well in the bottom of the carriage and you will be much more comfortable,” Pearce told her. The lady replied, “Thank you, I never thought of that.” Pearce continued to talk to the lady and encourage her by telling her that he too had carried loads unnecessarily when he could have put them down. And then he finished with the statement, “If the Lord is willing to carry me, He is willing to carry my worries.”

Casting is putting the whole of your life, not just the troubling issues, but everything in your life into His care.

One final insight. As in fishing, if you are going to do anything meaningful when you cast your line out into the water, you have to bait the hook. My suggestion is that before you try and “cast” that concern, treat it as “bait” and put a hook into it. Remind that troublesome concern what God’s promises have to say about it. Then set the hook by going back and reminding the concern, the “care,” two or three more times, saying aloud, “This is what the Bible says!”…and then quote the promise to it!

When you cast, the hook is what carries the concern away from you!