Chapter 27
Trust the Promise of Love 
Have you ever tried to cast your cares on the Lord, only to find that five minutes later, they are back with a vengeance? How do you let go of them for good?

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Sticky Stress
If you struggle with anxiety, chances are you’re familiar with 1 Peter 5:7.
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).
That verse can be both comforting and frustrating. Casting off your worries sounds great, but if you’ve ever tried it, you know anxieties are clingy. You try to give your worries to God, but they glue themselves to you. Moments after you pray, you’re as worried as ever. What’s the secret to letting them go?
Cast … Because He Cares
The most important word in 1 Peter 5:7 is “because.” It shows the relationship between our casting and God’s caring. Confidence in God’s love is the solvent that will dissolve the glue. Your soul won’t let go of a worry if there is a question mark on how much God cares.
In its third year, our church was growing fast and I was concerned about the health of the congregation. As we increased in size, we were losing the family feel we had enjoyed from the beginning. So we decided to have a church retreat to help nurture close relationships.
I’m not usually a big fan of special events, but this one mattered to me. I desperately wanted to succeed in our goal of establishing and nurturing close relationships as we welcomed the newcomers into the family. 
I assigned the task of planning the event to one of our associate pastors. He was skilled in event planning, but that’s not the main reason I chose him. I wanted him to do it because I could tell he cared about the retreat as much as I did. And it was that combination of his competence and his caring that released me from anxiety.
If he was an outstanding planner but didn’t think the retreat was important, the responsibility would be on his plate, but the anxiety would remain on my plate. I would have to be the one worrying about making sure it happened and worked out well. 
If you hand off an important task to someone who might not take it seriously, you’ll probably end up looking over his shoulder, making sure it gets done, which is what worriers do with God. They look over his shoulder like a micromanaging supervisor, second-guessing all his work.
You can never really cast your cares on the Lord and entrust him with those cares so much that you can let go of them unless you are 100% convinced of the second half of 1 Peter 5:7. Cast your anxieties on him because he cares for you.
This is why, when Jesus taught about anxiety, he spent most of his time talking about how much God cares. His teaching about anxiety in the Sermon on the Mount is one of the longest sections in the whole sermon. And sixty percent of that section is devoted to describing how much God cares. Jesus wanted it to sink in. 
Let’s take a look.
Feeding the Hamster
His first point is easy to miss. He tells you not to have anxiety because your life and body are more important than food and clothing.
"Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” (Matthew 6:25).
How does the importance of life and body translate into calming your anxiety? The answer lies in asking, “Important to whom?” Is Jesus talking about how important your life and body are to you? It’s hard to see how that would calm your anxiety. 
Important to other people? Same problem. 
Jesus’ argument only makes sense if he’s talking about how important your life and body are to God. His point is that it makes no sense to worry about food and clothes because of how much your life and body matter to the Lord. 
When something is important to you, you take care of it. The guy who is obsessed with having the greenest lawn on the block won’t think twice about spending money on fertilizer. Why? Because his lawn is so much more important to him than the cost of a bag of turf builder. You are God’s garden, and your flourishing matters far more to God than whatever it takes to bring about that flourishing.
Why God Made Birds
God loves you—but you already knew that. Hardly breaking news. But it’s one thing to know about God’s care; it’s something else to see it in action. Anxiety is an emotional problem, so the cure must run deep enough to affect the way you feel. And seeing helps with feeling. So God surrounds us with a world full of vivid, 3-D color demonstrations of his care for his creatures every day.
“Look at the birds of the air” (Matthew 6:26).
The word translated “Look” means “pay attention and learn.” Don’t just see the birds flying around and go on your way. God didn’t put birds on the planet just to keep the bug population down. They are here to give us a vivid display of a crucial aspect of God’s love if we look carefully.
Jesus begins by pointing out that birds are incapable of farming.
“They don’t sow or reap or store away in barns” (Matthew 6:25).
Birds make terrible farmers because whenever they see a seed, they eat it. They can neither produce food nor stockpile it, which means they depend completely on what God sets out for them every day. Yet they survive by the billions. 
Before sundown tonight, God will supply food for two to four hundred billion birds. Most birds eat about their own body weight in food every day. If the average bird weighed eight ounces, that would be a hundred million tons of food every day. Never mind all the other 1.2 million species of animals. A hundred million tons of food just for the birds. Then tomorrow, another hundred million tons. 
People in our culture are unimpressed. “It’s not God,” they say. “It’s just nature.” They imagine that if scientists observe what God does, measure it, and apply Latin labels to it, they have explained away the Creator. But measurements and labels describe the effects of God’s power, not the source.
Indigo Buntings, and many other birds, can navigate by star constellations. If you go outside and find the Big Dipper at 9:00 p.m., then spot it again at 3:00 a.m., It will be in a completely different place in the sky. These tiny little bird brains adjust for all that and go right where they need to go.
Other birds navigate by the earth’s magnetic field. How did they figure out how to do that? 

•	Arctic Turns migrate from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back, covering 25,000 miles with perfect precision.

•	The Bar-tailed Godwit migrates 7000 miles from Alaska to New Zealand in one continuous flight. This journey involves crossing open ocean with no rest stops.

•	Cuckoo Birds lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species. When it hatches, the cuckoo chick has the foresight to push out the host's eggs, ensuring it receives all the care and food from the unsuspecting foster parents.

•	New Caledonian Crows create and use tools to extract insects from tree bark.

•	Weaver birds use complex techniques to create intricate nests by weaving leaves, grass, and twigs with no prior experience or learning.

•	The Clark's Nutcracker can remember the locations of thousands of food caches it creates over vast areas months later.

•	Large flocks of Starlings exhibit synchronized flying patterns involving thousands of birds moving in unison, requiring coordination and communication that baffle scientists. 

Ask a scientist, “How do they do that? Where does that inner impulse come from?” The answer will come, “Instinct.”
What is instinct? It’s a Latin word that means “inner impulse.” Gravity is a Latin word that means heaviness. Fetus is a Latin word that means baby. Applying a Latin term explains nothing.
Could it have happened through evolution or natural selection? No. Natural selection selects behaviors. It selects from existing genetic information. It has no ability to create new information—only a mind can do that.
People who imagine science explains these behaviors are kidding themselves. It is God caring for his creatures. Any other explanation is superstition.
But how does God do it? Could it be that he merely wound up the creation like a clock, programmed all the laws of physics, and now he lets “nature” run on its own? 
Not according to Jesus. Jesus’ argument is that God’s daily feeding of the birds is proof of his fatherly care for you. Leaving you at the mercy of unguided natural processes would be the opposite of fatherly care. If that’s how it worked, Jesus’ argument about the birds would be nonsense.
To overcome anxiety, it’s crucial that we shift from our culture’s naturalistic worldview to the way Jesus taught us to view the world. Each time an animal finds a morsel of food, it was a direct action of a caring God. 
Read Psalms 104 and see if it sounds to you like God’s way of caring for animals is hands-on or hands-off.
“The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. … 25 There is the sea … teeming with creatures beyond number … large and small. … These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied … When you hide your face, they are terrified” (Psalms 104:21-29) 
Until you adopt that perspective, Jesus’ words about worry in Matthew 6 will ring hollow. If you believe mother nature feeds the birds by random, unguided, purposeless processes, that gives you no confidence that God will care for you. But when you look at the world through the lens of biblical truth, you have a spectacular display of God’s care all around you every day.
Whose Father?
So, who feeds the birds? God? Actually, that is not what Jesus says. It’s not, “God feeds them” or “Their Creator feeds them” or “Their Father.” Who does the feeding?
“Your heavenly Father feeds them” (Matthew 6:26).
Do you get Jesus’ point? Who comes up with those millions of tons of food to keep all the birds alive every day? Your Father. 
Why does God go to such extreme lengths to feed the birds? Is it because he’s really into birds? No. Jesus downplays their value. 
“Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:26).
In another context, Jesus said it even more strongly.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.” (Matthew 10:29). 
The point isn’t that God cares for the birds because of how valuable they are. The point is that your Father is the type who would go to extreme, ridiculous lengths to care for birds despite how worthless they are. And if that’s the sort of disposition he has toward worthless, disposable things, and he’s your Father, how do you think he’s going to care for you?
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. … So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29-31). 
How much more? How much does God value you? That’s easy to answer because God paid a price for you. What was the total bill? The life of his Son (Revelation 5:9).
You discover how much a person values something by the price he will pay for it. If I won’t offer you more than $500 for your car, it means the vehicle isn’t worth much to me. If I offer $50,000, I really want it. For you, God paid the most exorbitant imaginable price. Is God going to spend that much on you only to let you dry up and blow away in some hardship? 
Do you think God would decide before the creation of the world to save you, sacrifice his Son to redeem you, make a plan for your life, give you spiritual gifts, and call you into his service, and then say, “Oops!  I forgot to supply his needs”? God is not like a child who forgets to feed his goldfish and finds it floating belly-up.
Think of how you treat the most expensive of your possessions. If you did get a cheap jalopy, you wouldn’t care if it got another scratch or dent. But if you cashed in all your retirement for your dream ride, you might get upset if someone smudges it with fingerprints.
Are you God’s priceless, treasured possession? More than that. You are his child. How much more do you care for your children than for your possessions? 
Tailor-Made Provision
Jesus may have taken his bird illustration from Psalms 104, which speaks of God’s care for birds, then expands the point to describe God’s specific provisions for each of his creatures’ unique needs. Cattle need grass. Storks need high, strong branches for their nests. Lions need prey. Sea creatures need massive bodies of water full of food. Conies need crags in the mountainside. Goats need high altitudes and rocky terrain (Psalms 104:10-29). God provides tailor-made supply for each of his creatures.
He even cares for plants and trees.
“The trees of the LORD are satisfied” (Psalms 104:16).
Trees can’t move an inch from their spot. They are stuck in place for their entire lifespan. No arms, no hands—the epitome of helplessness. Yet how many trees are not only surviving, but thriving. 
God pulls their roots down deep and supplies them with water so they can laugh at drought. He draws the sap up against gravity and nourishes every leaf. You can look anywhere in creation and see God’s specialized provision to meet every unique need of everything he created, no matter how insignificant.
How much more will he custom fit his grace for each of his children. Think of how Jesus accommodated his post-resurrection appearances to give each disciple just what he or she needed. John believed as soon as he saw the empty tomb, but Mary needed to hear him say her name. Thomas needed to see the wounds. The men on the road to Emmaus needed the entire Old Testament explained to them. Peter needed to be publicly restored with a three-fold affirmation of his love and devotion to the Lord. 
Whatever you need, God will provide. Maybe not everything you think you need, but everything you truly need. God knows just the crags and caves you need for refuge. He provides just the depth of underground water you need to survive the droughts. He moves the sap around in you to supply every branch in your life. All you need to do is seek it from him and be receptive to what he provides.
“Open wide your mouth and I will fill it” (Psalms 81:10).
“The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail” (Isaiah 58:11).
Clothes
After describing how God feeds the birds, Jesus shifts to the way God clothes the flowers.  
“Why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:28-30).
Most people take this section to be essentially a repeat of the previous section. It is generally assumed that food and clothes represent the basic necessities of life. But in the immediate context, Jesus has been speaking about clothes in terms of wealth and earthly treasure. 
In Scripture, clothing is most often a function of human glory, not human survival. The primary function is not to maintain life, but to enhance beauty. Nakedness is connected to shame and clothes to glory. Clothes are for making you look good. Even God’s gloriousness is described in terms of his clothing (e.g. Isaiah 6:1). The point isn’t to describe God as keeping warm, but to illustrate his majesty.
When Jesus said, “Why do you worry about clothes?” the point is no longer about necessities, but about honor. People who worry about clothes are not afraid they will go naked and freeze in the elements. They are people who worry about looking bad. This is why Jesus goes on to talk about lavish adornment.
“Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these” (Matthew 6:29).
It’s about splendor, which is something every one of us cares about. If you don’t think your glory matters to you, think again. It may surprise you to discover how much of your anxiety rises from your desire for glory. 
Whether it be fear of looking bad, anxiety over being a failure, being upset when you’re unfairly blamed, fear of rejection, or feeling angst when someone gossips about you. We all crave glory. No one wants to be repulsive. You don’t care what some people think of you, but there are others whose opinion matters to you. It might be people at work, your father, strangers, people at church—we’re all seeking approval from someone. Isn’t it true that it would make your day if you walked past a room and overheard someone talking about you saying, “He’s such a great guy.” “She’s amazing. I love it when she’s around.”
Of course, that desire can go bad. Much of our sin rises from seeking earthly glory rather than honor from God (See John 12:43; Galatians 1:10). But seeking honor from God is a very good thing (See Romans 2:7). The more you love God, the more hearing him say, “Well done” matters to you. 
God designed us to reflect His glory, so we have a God-given, innate desire to be glorious. And just as the promise to supply food extends beyond food to all your earthly needs, so it is with the promise to supply adornment. God promises to supply everything you need for physical sustenance, and he promises to lavish you with all the honor and glory that you need. 
And if we understood and believed that promise, a huge portion of our anxiety would disappear. All those honor-related anxieties would melt away. 
Paper Plates
So if you struggle with fears of inadequacy, Jesus invites you to look closely at the wildflowers. The closer you look, the more obvious it will be that God cares about making even the least important works of his hands glorious.
Put a petal from any flower under a microscope, and you will see intricacy and beauty that defies human imagination. Put the finest fabric of the most extravagant gown ever made under a microscope and it looks like burlap. 
Some scientists spend a lifetime studying the wonders of the beauty of a flower. Isn’t it a bit excessive for God to do that? Some wildflowers bloomed for only a single day and then died. They are like God’s paper plates—disposable. God is like a king who is so wealthy that he uses fine china as his paper plates. That is how concerned he is about making sure his creation is properly adorned.
If God goes to those lengths for his paper plates, what will he do for the crown of his creation? How do you think he will adorn his Son’s bride, who represents his image? God cares about your reputation, your beauty, and your impressiveness. 
Will God allow you to look like a fool in the eyes of the world? Yes. In fact, he promises it (Matthew 5:11). But he will also give you favor in the eyes of just the right people at just the right time.
When people accept us or reject like us, we often make the mistake of seeing only the human aspect. We think it’s mainly about us (we are impressive or unimpressive) or about those people (they have this or that reason for their attitude toward us). We forget that it is ultimately God who controls whether you have favor in the eyes of men. 
Rest assured; God will grant you favor in the eyes of everyone whose favor you need right at the moment you need it to accomplish God’s purposes.
If you want to see that in action, read the story of Joseph in Genesis 39 and underline the phrase, “The LORD “granted him favor in the eyes of ….” You’ll see how God moved Joseph exactly where he wanted him by granting him favor in the eyes of just the right people in just the right moments, and removing that favor in other key moments.
God cares about your dignity, and one way God gives you honor is by granting you respect in the eyes of the people whose respect matters and at the time when it matters. When the time is right, he will make your righteousness shine like the day (Psalms 37:6).
Does God Care about Dumb Stuff?
You can cast your anxieties on the Lord because he cares for you. But what if the thing you’re worried about is petty? You know it shouldn’t matter so much to you, but it does. You feel silly praying about it, because it’s so insignificant in the scheme of things. Do Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 apply to those anxieties?
At what point is an issue so small that God stops caring? Is he concerned about a problem with your pet? A crack in your phone screen? A bad hair day? Bumping your funny bone? Where is the bottom floor of God’s compassion? 
Jesus set that floor somewhere below items that sell two for a penny.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:29-30).
Perhaps you’re a little self-conscious about a bald spot or a receding hairline. But not even the most self-absorbed narcissist counts every strand. God does. 
If you are average, you lost about seventy-five hairs over the past 24 hours. God paid attention when each of those seventy-five came loose. Why? Is God obsessed with hair? No. Jesus points to a problem so insignificant that you don’t even care about it to show there is no bottom limit to God’s concern. 
Jesus’ illustrations are so extreme, they almost sound ridiculous. A single hair? A half-penny? Does God really care trifles?
“For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways ... so that you will not strike your foot against a stone” (Psalms 91:11-12).
Sending angels from heaven to protect you from stubbing your toe? Really? Don’t angels have better things to do? 
No. Not when it comes to caring for someone as precious to God as you. Unless your toe needs stubbing for a specific purpose God has in mind, God will dispatch angels from heaven to make sure it doesn’t happen.
The Reason God Cares
Consider the logic of 1 Peter 5:7. The reason you can cast your anxieties on God is that he cares. That means if there is an anxiety he doesn’t care about, you can’t cast that anxiety on him. 
But what if you do have anxiety about your score on a video game? Why would God care about that? He cares about it simply because it’s bothering you. Peter doesn’t say, “Cast your anxieties on him because he cares about them.” He says, “Cast your anxieties on him because he cares for you.” A literal translation is “Casting all your anxiety on him because it matters to him about you.” When you’re a father, whatever causes pain to your child, big or small, matters to you. And God is the most compassionate of all fathers.
If it matters to you, it matters to God because you matter to God. That’s how love works. 
Perhaps the thing that’s bothering you really is trivial and shouldn’t matter as much to you as it does. You need to adjust your priorities and values. But even while you’re working on that, God still has compassion on you when you’re in distress.
Unfathomable Love
So God cares about everything that hurts you, but how much does he care? The answer to that question is so massive and profound, it requires supernatural enablement to have the power to even grasp the magnitude of it. That was Paul’s request for his readers.
“I pray that you … may have power … to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:17-18).
How much do you know about his love? That he loved you enough to sacrifice his own Son to save you? That’s a start, but anyone can understand that much. If your concept of God's love is easy to understand, it has a long way to go.
Paul goes on to ask that they would “know this love that surpasses knowledge.” What does it mean to know something that can’t be known? The request only makes sense if the first “know” refers to experiential knowledge. Paul is asking that they might know by experience a love that transcends intellectual study. You can feel more than you can understand. 
God’s love for you is an ocean. You’ve splashed around by the beach, maybe ventured out over your head, perhaps dove a hundred yards from shore. But out in the middle of the ocean of God’s love there are depths beyond anything you have ever conceived. And yet, with divine enablement, it’s possible for you to experience something of those depths. 
Why Does God Love You So Much?
God loves you more than you can imagine, but why? Does it even make sense for God to love you that much?
If you have a hard time believing God really loves you, it’s probably because you think it depends on you. You look in the mirror and ask, “Why would God love someone like me?”
That’s the wrong question. That’s the wrong question. The reason God loves you so much isn’t because of what you see in the mirror. The Father loves you because of your association with Jesus. So his delight in you depends on the goodness, beauty, and worthiness of Jesus, not your worthiness. His love for you is a spillover of his love for his Son.
“I have made you known to them … in order that the love you have for me may be in them” (John 17:26).
Think of your favorite Bible verse about God’s love for you, and you won’t have to look far in the context to see how it’s based on his love for Christ.
“We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. … neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-39). 
Everything depends on those last six words. The unbreakable love the Father has for us is only because we are in Christ. 
So it doesn’t matter what you see in the mirror. God’s love for you isn’t based on your righteousness. It’s based on Christ’s righteousness. So the question isn’t, “Why would God love someone like me?” The real question is, “Why would God love someone like Jesus?” And the answer to that question is easy.
This Doesn’t Feel like Love
Another reason it’s hard to believe God really loves you sometimes is that God sends so much suffering your way. You look at what’s happening to you and say, “If this is God’s love, who needs wrath?” How can you believe God loves you when there seems to be so much evidence to the contrary?
Of all the moments when God the Father could have spoken from heaven to remind Jesus how much he loved him, why do you suppose he chose Jesus’ baptism? Could it be because of what came immediately after the baptism?
“A voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’ At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert” (Mark 1:11-12).
The experience in the desert was brutal. Forty days of solitary confinement in a place known as “the devastation,” the haunt of demons, to be attacked mercilessly by Satan while in a state of physical weakness.
In a time like that, it would be natural to think, This doesn’t feel like love. So before driving him out there, God made a point of reminding Jesus, “Despite how it feels, I love you and I’m pleased with you.”
But he didn’t only say that to Jesus privately. He recorded it in Scripture for us. God not only wanted to assure Jesus of his love, he wanted to remind us as well because our confidence in God’s love for us comes from our confidence in his love for Christ. 
The Father said, “I love you” and then immediately drove Jesus out into the desert. Do you want him to love you the same way he loved Jesus? I hope so, because that’s the only way he will ever love you. The Father intends to lift you into glory—after a time of suffering, just like Jesus.
When hardship strikes, remind yourself, “God is loving me like he loved Jesus.” When he drives you out into the wilderness, remember those words “You are my child whom I love. With you I am well-pleased.”
Godliness Training Exercises

1)	Each day this week, pray fervently for yourself what Paul prayed for the Ephesians—that God would give you the power required to experience the depths of his love.
2)	Over the next week, watch for examples of God supplying the unique needs of creatures in his creation. Consider every example you can recall of God’s tailor-made provision for you. What are some provisions that God has given you that are suitable for you but that would not be suitable for others? Now reaffirm your faith in his future provision. 
3)	Also, think of what kind of grace you are especially in need of today and seek it from him.
4)	Are there any pockets of anxiety in your life that stem from concern about lacking glory in some form? You’ll have to think hard, because we don’t normally use the term “glory.” A synonym, such as “impressiveness,” “acceptability,” “value,” or “beauty” may be an easier way to think about it. Look carefully at a flower and think deeply about God’s promise to make you glorious.
5)	Prayerfully read meditations 90-95 in Deeper Knowledge of God. These meditations focus on the Hebrew word for love (hesed).
6)	Memorize Ephesians 3:17-19.