Will the Lion Devour You?

I Peter 5: 7-8 - 7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.  8 Be sober , be vigilant ; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about , seeking whom he may devour :


He cares!  That statement right there is worth getting up in the morning for.  God cares, He loves you and me.  He wants us to bring our cares to Him.  He wants us to leave them there.  I have gotten better at taking things to him but I'm not sure that I'm very good at leaving them there.  I mean to, my plan is to leave them there.  But I'm a fixer by nature, I want to make things happen.  I don't like to wait.


As much as I know in my head and my heart that God's timing is perfect, I often act like He needs my help to make things happen on time.  Now I'm not talking about when God tells you to do something.  I'm talking about when you think the timing should be something and it hasn't happened yet.


I don't think it is by coincidence that the verse telling us to be sober and vigilant comes immediately following the verse that tells us to cast our care on Him.  The devil uses those things that you give to Jesus but 'take back' to handle, to depress, oppress and defeat us.  We must be vigilant that we not let him use those things to play with our minds.


Satan's favorite playground is our mind.  If he can capture your mind, he can make you ineffective, he can steal your joy.  We need to realize how dangerous satan is.  A lion kills it's prey and makes a meal from it.  When the devil puts something in front of you that seems harmless, understand that is called bait.  He wants you to take the bait so he can destroy you.


He may not kill you physically, but he will kill your testimony.  He will kill your desire to serve the Father.  He will kill your desire to bring people to the Savior.  In many cases, he wants you to live so that others can see the defeat and they will be discouraged.  He is cunning.  He knows that discouragement breeds discouragement, discontentment breeds discontentment.  So if he can make a few Christians miserable, they not only are useless for God's work, they will take others with them.


But Jesus gave us the answer, give Him your cares and burdens.  He never promised we would not suffer or have cares but He did promise us that He will never leave us.  He is there, He will carry the burden, if we will just let him.  We can't move or fight if we are loaded down with burdens.  We must give the burdens to Him to be able to use the armor He gives us to fight the good fight.