Casting Off the Weight

The last several weeks have been difficult for me.  I've been weighed down.  I went for a run today, and as I finished up and began walking to cool down I was praying.  I was thinking about a dream, actually more of a nightmare, I had last night, and I started to see that my issues were deeper than they seemed.  I have been struggling with jealousy (this is difficult to admit), and I've been feeling cast aside and undervalued.  I feel bad for having these feelings, but they have some tough roots.  I know it's wrong to feel this way (*Philippians 2:3-4), but I can't seem to make it stop.  I've begged God to take these feelings away, but I seem to keep coming back to the same place.  

As I approached the house I began to beg God to speak to me.  I told Him that I want to hear His voice.  I don't want to hear my own voice, or any of the other voices in my head anymore, I just want to hear Him and know that it is His voice.  As I thought about the dream I realized that fear and anxiety are buried beneath my feelings of jealousy.  I began to ask God what to do with them.  Part way up the stairs to my room I lost my balance.  I would have landed on my back, but my hand went out against the sliding glass door and I didn't go down at all.  What would have resulted in serious injury only made me realize that God didn't mean for me to fall.  I asked again what to do with my fear and insecurity and the answer came.  I didn't hear an audible voice, but the answer came in the form of scripture that was hidden in my heart.  The verse that surfaced was 1 Peter 5:7 "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."  All this time I had been begging Him to take it, but I had to make the effort to cast it.
  

I had an idea that wasn't my own.  It was an object lesson.  It was part of the answer I had asked for.  I was going to literally go throw away the things that were dragging me down.  I went in search of some stones that I had collected.  These would be smooth to write on, and good for casting.  The stones were very much like the burdens on my heart:  I had picked them up somewhere along the way, and I was saving them as a souvenir, but I did not even have a definite recollection of where they had come from.  They were just taking up space in my drawer, helping to weigh it down.  They had no useful purpose.  I picked out stones for fear, insecurity and anxiety, but as I went to get my Sharpie I realized I needed to go back and get pride, because it needed to leave with the rest.  I took the stones out back in the yard where the stream flows out of the woods, and as I cast each stone away I prayed.  The first prayer went something like this, "Dear Lord, this stone represents my fear.  I am casting it on you, and I ask that you will never let me take it back."  I threw the stone as far as I could, in my weakness, up into the woods where the water flows down, and then did the same with each of the rest. 

I'm on a journey, and I can't afford to go back for those stones.  I know I will be tempted.  I already have been in fact, but when I feel the pity party coming on I will have the mental image of those four stones.  I can remember physically throwing them away, and remind myself that I cast those things on my Lord.  He died to pay for them.  

Thank you Jesus!!! 

*Philippians 2:3-4  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.  (My side note:  there's no room for jealousy here.)