Alien Life: Hope
Cast Your Cares on Him
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. May 21st, 2023
I’m going to close out this series on the eccentricity and peculiarity of discipleship on a personal note. I hope you will bear with me. I have borne the burden of anxiety for the majority of my life. I was first diagnosed with an anxiety disorder in the fourth grade. I would wake up with such terrible panic attacks and general anxiety that I refused to leave the bathroom until about 10AM. When I was finally able to get to school after a week or two I was supplied a cot in a corner of the school library. If I had an attack, which was often, I could go to the library to calm down.
I was medicated, I went to therapy, but it never really went away. Every morning until 10AM I simply had to force my way through this anxiety to get to school and try and pay attention. By high school I had developed a whole routine where I got up at a certain time, showered, got dressed, and went for a walk. I had timed the walk perfectly so that I would get home just in time to be picked up for school. I couldn’t bear to sit down, the walk was my way of coping.
Things lessened up in undergrad. I imagine because I had considerably more freedom than in grade school. But It never went away. And while I have had a string of very good years, and I haven’t had to worry about any disruption to my life I know I can’t really say it’s gone away. It can always return.
These experiences are very formative to me. It’s the reason I may seem very laid back and aloof. I monitor myself all the time. I second guess myself a lot because I know I have a mind that tells me to be afraid when there’s nothing to fear. But, in the end, it’s also strengthened my faith because I had to depend on God.
Middle school was probably the darkest time. I simply assumed that the panic attacks and anxiety I was experiencing then was going to remain for the rest of my life. That I would simply need to manage a working life where I was anxious each and every morning. When the slightest thing could set me off. Or maybe nothing at all. It’s terrible that this went through my mind back then. I realize that now. But through it all I retained a faith in God that brought me through. Through it all I knew that I could trust in him to give me a good future. I had hope.
Peter tells us this morning, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” And, “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith.” The sufferings and anxieties of Peter’s time are the suffering and anxiety of persecution. Christians being booted from their homes or professional associations. Being ostracized. Being shamed. We, by the grace of God, do not endure the persecution of first century Christians today. But we do have our own burdens, pains, anxieties.
I was thinking recently about how one of the worst things about my experience with anxiety is how lonely it was. I didn’t know anyone else with the same experience. While I knew it was no moral failing, I sometimes thought it was. But now it’s a lot more common for people to talk about their experience with anxiety and other forms of mental illness. And if the reports are correct, childhood anxiety is growing. We may live in a land of affluence, but that doesn’t mean we don’t suffer.
I learned to cast my anxiety on God. I learned to take it up in prayer. It didn’t always mean my anxiety went away. But it gave me something to cling to. And it gave me the hope that carried me through it all. And the same goes for us today. One thing that makes us peculiar is that we can be a people with hope. That whatever we endure we know God is in control and is bringing all things to their end. And we can resist the devil who prowls putting thoughts in our minds about our own unworthiness and trying to rob us of our hope.
Jesus endured much, and is victorious. We may, at times, endure much as well. But we know the victory is won and the victory is ours. And that makes all the difference.