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Casting all your care upon Him, because He cares about you. - 1 Peter 5:7 HCSB

Who doesn’t have cares? Who does not live with worries and concerns about the future? One of the many downsides to being finite is that we cannot foresee the future. We don’t even have a full grasp of the present! This doesn’t change when you become a Christian. You don’t just automatically become “Super Saint” and rest entirely on God. It is something that is learned.

Many people seem to think that faith is a blind leap into the dark. It is not. Faith is a learned response. I trust my wife because I have lived many years with her and she has never been unfaithful to me. I trust my chair because I have sat in it safely hundreds of times. If ever my wife is unfaithful or my chair breaks under my weight, I will more than likely lose faith. It would take many years to regain that sense of trust and comfort.

So faith grows with time and experience. But it is not necessarily chronological. If I were married for fifteen years but had only actually spent five years with my wife due to my job, then I would only have five years worth of knowledge of her. My faith in her would only be five years worth. Fortunately for me, our separations have been few and far between. We do everything together. Thus, my knowledge of her is great and correspondingly, so is my faith in her.

I have seen people who have been Christians for thirty years but who were still novices because they did not actually spend that much time with God. They did not study the Scriptures, they did not explore their relationship with Him. As a result, they were still Christian infants. I have seen young Christians who were totally dedicated to God and spent every possible moment with Him. Their faith was very strong.

Jim Elliot was once such Christian. He was able to leave behind a comfortable life in the US, move to Ecuador as a missionary, and was eventually martyred for the faith. But this did not happen overnight. He was not able to show this much faith in God until after many, many moments spent with Him in prayer.

Only after we spend much time with God will we be able to fully give all our worries and cares to Him. As with anyone else, a relationship with God can and must be cultivated. What does it take to make a great friend? Time spent together, two-way conversation, care for the interests of each other, and a willingness to sacrifice for each other are required. Believe me; God is already doing all this for us. The only ones who are lacking are us, so we need to get to it.

"'Christ in You...'" from Dale Krebbs

Storms Of Life