Take Out the Trash!

This year in our monthly articles we are considering favorite verses from the Bible.
This month’s favorite Bible verse is:  1 Peter 5:7

If you were asked to write down your top-ten favorite places, it’s hard to imagine a landfill making anybody’s list. There’s nothing pretty about a landfill. There’s nothing attractive or inviting about a place where trash is piled high and deep. It’s no fun to be at a landfill; all you can do is watch the pile get bigger. And you certainly wouldn’t want to take home any souvenirs!

But in 1 Peter 5:7, God is inviting us (if it can be said this way) to treat him like a landfill. “Pile it up!” he says. “Keep it coming! I can take it! Cover me with it!”

What kind of trash is God asking us to cover him with? Anxiety. Worry about the future. Stress of the present. Burdens from the past. All the things that pile up and make life feel like an endless slog through a murky, mucky swamp. All the things that press hard and cause pain, on the inside and the outside.

God says, “Throw it all on me!” He wants to take away all those burdens. He wants to remove the guilt from the sins of the past. He wants to hold us up under the stress of the present. He wants to assure us about the future.

But, as ugly as it sounds, he does this by taking our burdens onto himself. In fact, he already has taken our burdens when Jesus Christ bore the sins of the whole world. He carried all of them when he died on the cross. He didn’t drop anybody’s burden of sin. He didn’t leave anybody out so that now they’re stuck carrying their own.

Do you know people who help others so much that they hardly have any time left for themselves? You can marvel at how much they give of themselves, how many burdens they carry for other people. But if you would ever ask them how they can possibly do so much to help others, the answer might come back so plainly, “I just love them.”

God’s attitude toward you is so full of love—so overflowing with love—that no matter how many of your burdens you pile on him, his love will still spill out for you through Jesus. So take out the trash! Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.