Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7
What does it mean to care about something without being crushed by it?
Jonas and Rich were part of a small group of friends who met regularly to pray together. One evening, Jonas asked the group to pray about a devastating disease outbreak happening on the other side of the world. Rich stopped him. “I can’t,” he said. “I just can’t take in one more terrible thing. There’s too much. I don’t even know where to start.”
Maybe you’ve felt that way.
We live in a moment in history unlike any before it. News of suffering reaches us instantly from every corner of the globe. For most of human history, people carried the burdens of their immediate community. Today, we carry the weight of the world—and we were never built for that.
Jonas said something that stayed with the group that night. “We can care about something without carrying it ourselves.” Caring is human. Carrying everything leads to paralysis or despair. And here’s what Scripture makes clear: we were never meant to carry it alone. The apostle Peter—who knew something about failure, pressure, and starting over—wrote these words: “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you” (1 Peter 5:7). Worries close to home and for the other side of the world.
Prayer is one of the most practical ways to do this. When Rich felt overwhelmed, the very act of praying was itself a way of giving rather than carrying. It doesn’t mean the burden isn’t real. It means you’re trusting it to Someone with the capacity to hold it.
You were made to care—not to carry everything. The difference between the two is surrender—and surrender, in this case, isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom.
What are you carrying today that you were only ever meant to give to God?
