“Throw down your burden on Yahweh; he will provide for you and he will never permit that righteousness be swayed.”

(Psalm 55:23 {verse 22 in English Bibles})

Not only does the catechism promise that God governs all things and that he even uses evil events for the good of our salvation and sanctification as believers, but the language also reminds us that God is the great provider who will give to us all things that we need. Yet, when we think about God providing the things we need, often the first and primary thing of which we think has to do with our physical needs — He provides a place to protect us from the weather, food for the belly, and clothes for the back. And while all of these things are important to us, they are not the most important thing — more necessarily, God provides for the needs of my soul as well.

He provides this ultimately through Christ, who did for me, body and soul, what I could never have done for myself. Christ opened the gate into heaven that I might come in. He nurtures and nourishes my soul through his Word and instructs it through his Word and Discipline. And ultimately, he conforms me into the image of his Son that the Imago Dei that has been warped and twisted within me due to sin, can be straightened and prepared for glory. And indeed, this spiritual care is my greatest need. I can survive for a season on the morsels and tidbits of food that I can scavenge, but I cannot survive for a moment without the care that God provides to my soul. Woe to the one who is apart from God; how wretched is their state of spiritual death.

So, as the Psalmist reminds us, cast your cares on Yahweh, recognizing that these cares are not just those things that plague you in the physical world — nor are they primarily those things that plague you in the physical world — but those cares for the state of your soul as well. Lay your cares upon Him and he will carry you through even the darkest days this life brings.