Cast Your Cares Before the Day Begins

Cast Your Cares Before the Day Begins
By M.T. Clark — P-2042 | 08/14/2026 – Today’s Audio Podcast
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Today’s photo of a clear deep-blue sky over a brilliant fiery-red maple and a golden tree in full autumn color lining a two-lane road, while a braking car leads the way a head and an old blue historical marker proclaims where we are driving through off to the right, comes to us from yours truly, as I captured this ordinary yet peaceful autumn scene while driving through Historic Loudonville, NY, on October 17th, 2024.

Well, it’s Friday, thank God, and I share this photo of a fiery autumn tree against a clear blue sky, caught while driving through Historic Loudonville — and yes, it really does say that on the sign — for no deeper reason than the sheer beauty of it. Sometimes the Lord just hands you a blaze of red and orange under a perfect blue sky, and it lifts your spirit and gives you joy.

It’s a good reminder that the God who takes the trouble to paint roadside trees in beautiful colors each autumn is the same God who cares about you and knows about the burdens you wake up carrying some mornings. Speaking of the weight we wake up carrying,

Our series, “Win the Morning, Renew Your Mind,” continues today with what to do with the weight we wake up carrying.

Cast Your Cares Before the Day Begins

Many of us wake already carrying something that gives us stress, such as a worry that seemed to be waiting for you at the edge of the bed or a knot in the stomach that arrived before we were even conscious of it. For these anxious burdens, Peter gives us an instruction and a reason to hope. He joins them together in First Peter 5:7 (NIV), which says: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” The instruction is to cast our anxieties onto the Lord. The reason we can hope is that He cares. The reason makes the instruction possible.

Look first at that word cast. It is a strong, deliberate word — to throw something off yourself and onto another, the way you would heave a heavy pack off your shoulders and onto a wagon built to carry it.

Peter does not say to manage your care, or to shrink it, or to think about it more calmly. He says to throw it off of you and onto the Lord. This is not passive. Our cares and anxieties do not usually drift off on their own. They tend to cling to us and to consume our attention and our peace. Our anxieties have to be deliberately picked up and thrown away to be free of them.

And notice how much of them Peter says to throw: “all your anxiety”. Not the manageable portions, not the spiritual-sounding worries while you keep the practical ones, he tells us to cast, or throw away, all of it. The big fears and the small nagging ones, the thing you would confess in church and the thing you would be embarrassed to admit you are anxious about, all of it gets cast onto the Lord.

Then Peter tells us why we can do such a thing without it being wishful denial: because “he cares for you”. God is not distant or apathetic to our struggles. The Lord cares for us, and that is the foundation under the whole command.

We can throw our care onto God because God is not indifferent to us. The One we are casting our burden on is not a distant force who tolerates us; He is a Father who is genuinely concerned with the details of our lives. We are not bothering Him with our worries. We are doing exactly what a child is supposed to do with a Father who cares.

The reason so many of us keep carrying what we were told to cast off is that, deep down inside, we are not sure that God cares enough to be trusted with it. Peter assures us that He can be. God cares for you. So, you can hand Him the weight.

This is a morning discipline if there ever was one, because the morning is when the weight is often heaviest and freshest. Just because God’s mercies are new every morning doesn’t necessarily mean we will experience them. The worry that fell asleep with us last night, often wakes up with us, and if we do not deal with it early, we will carry it into another day — into our work, our conversations, and our patience with the people around us.

But Peter gives us a way to start the day unburdened. Before the day begins, before the phone and the demands on us come rushing in, we can take the whole load we woke up under and deliberately cast it onto the God who cares.

This is not vaguely wishing it away but actually naming it and handing it over to God. Specifically, we name the fears, the situations around us, and the relationship issues that we are carrying and give them to God, saying: “Lord, I am throwing all of these things onto You, because You care for me and You can carry what I can’t.”

And here is some honesty: what we cast off, we sometimes pick back up. If we aren’t careful, our anxieties have a way of finding their way back onto our shoulders by mid-morning, and we have to cast it off again.

That is not a failure. That is just evidence that the battle for our peace is real and that our ongoing life of trust has to be real too. Casting your care is less of a one-time event than a habit you build as you walk with the Lord. Every morning, and often several times a day, we will need to learn to throw the weight back onto the One who is strong enough to carry it. Over time, you will get quicker at recognizing when you have taken on something that was never yours to carry and become quicker at throwing it back where it belongs.

I have carried plenty of fear, burdens, and anxieties that I was never meant to, and I have learned that the weight does not usually lift because the situations resolve themselves. It lifts because I finally hand it to the Lord instead of holding on to it. The circumstances may still be unsettled by day’s end, but the crushing weight of them comes off the moment it is genuinely cast onto God, because He really does care, and He really can carry it.

So, this morning, brothers and sisters, before you take on another day, take the cares and concerns that you woke up with and throw them — all of them— onto the God who cares for you. Then walk into the day and your weekend ahead a little lighter, resting in the people and the mercies that God has provided. He cares for you. That is not a slogan; it is the reason you can let it go. Every step we take toward the Lord is a step in the right direction.

Keep on walking and talking with God.

— M.T.

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“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”

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