We’ve been studying the principle of the wilderness, and
looking at the Israelites when they were led into the wilderness at the
1 Peter 5:5b-7
5 …for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.
We need to understand that there is an essential difference between proud, or arrogant believers and humble believers. The arrogant believer is one who fails to walk by faith, and acts independently of God. He tries to solve the problem on his own. He does what he wants to do. He is the one who is striving.
But the humble believer depends entirely upon the Lord. He trusts in Him every step of the way. He isn’t striving because he’s letting the Lord do the work.
It’s when you are humble that you become a beneficiary of grace! God then does all the work while you sit back and depend on Him.
6 Therefore (meaning in light of the fact that God gives
grace to the humble believer) humble
yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper
time,
I’ve heard this verse about a million times, but I’ve always wondered – what exactly is humbling yourself? Look at it this way: when you get into a wilderness situation, you can choose to function one of two ways. Either arrogantly (independently) by taking matters into your own hands, or humbly (dependently) by handing it all over to someone else. The next verse tells us exactly HOW to humble ourselves:
7
casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
The word for casting is the Greek EPIRIPTO. It really means to throw something. When you throw your worries onto the Lord, you are humbling yourself! That’s exactly what prayer is!
Think about this – what do you have to do when you throw something to somebody? You have to LET GO OF IT! When you pray, and throw your problems on the Lord, you are turning in humility to the Lord, the One who is able and willing to solve them, because HE CARES FOR YOU.
One thing to be careful about – when you cast your
worries on the Lord, be sure you don’t have a rope
attached to them to bring them back.
When you pray, you must let go of the problem and cease striving. The only way to do this is to have faith in God.
One more passage talks about this same principle:
Psalms 46:10a
10 "Cease striving
and know that I am God;
The Hebrew for cease striving is the word RAPHAH. It means to drop, to abandon, or to LET GO! The key to being able to truly throw your problems on Him, and let go, is to KNOW God.
What is He like? What has He promised you? How much does He love you? When you know these things from His word, you will have a big enough faith that you can truly throw Him all your problems in the wilderness.