Anxiety and Depression

Humble yourselves under God's mighty hand, so that at just the right time He will lift you up. Cast all your anxiety upon Him because He cares about you and for you.
1st Peter 5:6-7.

What's the connection between humbling ourselves and casting all our cares upon God?
. What's the connection between humbling ourselves and God lifting us up because He cares about us?
. When is it that we aren't humbling ourselves?
The answer to the last question is clear.
- We aren't humble before God when we're trying to run our own lives.
- We aren't humble before God when we're trying to solve our own problems without God's help.
- We aren't humble before God when when we don't rely on God's wisdom and love.

If we believe that God is the Creator of all that's seen and unseen, then why wouldn't we rely on Him, especially in our most difficult times? That's easy. The fact is, we don't trust God. We don't trust God because He doesn't do things the way that we'd do them. Because we don't trust God and because we depend on ourselves to decide what's best for our lives, we experience anxiety and depression at almost the same rate as those who don't even know Jesus as their Saviour and God as their Creator. Rather than casting our cares upon God, we not only carry them ourselves, we pile them up so high that we stagger beneath the weight.
. We can only cast our cares upon God when we humble ourselves enough that we admit that we need God's help.
. We can only cast our cares upon God when we're honest enought with ourselves that we admit that we don't want God's help.
. We can only cast our cares upon God when accept that we want to be in control of our affairs. In reality, we WANT to determine the solution to our problems. We want to set the course that our lives will take.

God loves us. God cares about us. God wants to lift us out of our problems. Problem is, He can't do that when we are clinging tightly to the very issues from which He is trying to rescue us. And we can't allow God to lift us out of our problems until we humble ourselves enough to rid ourselves of the pride that causes us to run our own lives instead of casting our worries upon our Lord and Saviour.

This is no small matter since, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."