Casting Your Cares on the Lord

 It’s been sweltering here in Oklahoma, with days so hot the air feels heavy and still. And in the middle of it all, I find myself constantly watching my chickens.

In the backyard chicken groups I follow, post after post tells of birds lost to the heat. There’s a flurry of advice: put out sprinklers, offer pans of ice water with bricks to perch on, give frozen treats like watermelon, keep fans running day and night. We’ve tried so many of those things. And while they help, I still found myself obsessively checking the cameras—seeing their beaks open, wings spread, panting to cool down. I could tell they were hot. I could tell I was stressed.

The worry started to seep into everything. I wasn’t sleeping. I’d wake up at night, heart heavy with concern over these little creatures that God placed in our care.

Then one night, I felt a quiet nudge in my heart. The Lord whispered, “Can you not trust Me with the chickens I gave you?”

It stopped me in my tracks. And I realized, yes, yes I can.

I took a deep breath, and I gave that worry over to Him. I asked for wisdom in caring for them, and I trusted Him with the rest.

Not long after, I read a devotional by Rick Renner that spoke directly to my heart. It talked about walking through troubled times, but not walking alone or burdened. When we cast our cares on the Lord, He doesn’t always take away the difficulty, but He walks with us through it and carries the weight we were never meant to hold.

That truth has stayed with me. Because whether it’s something big or something as simple as chickens in the backyard, the Lord cares. He cares about what matters to us. And when we surrender those worries—when we lay them at His feet—we don’t have to walk in fear or anxiety.

Instead, we walk in trust.

1 Peter 5:7 “Casting all your care upon him; for He careth for you.”