Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)
Sadness doesn’t always announce itself with dramatic tears or obvious grief. Sometimes it’s just a heaviness that settles in—a weight in your chest, a flatness to the day, a sense that something’s off even when nothing is particularly wrong.
I’ve experienced both kinds of sadness: the acute grief that comes from loss, disappointment, or heartbreak, and the vague melancholy that shows up without a clear cause. Both are real. Both are heavy in their own way.
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” – 1 Peter 5:7
For years, I read this verse as being about worry and stress—and it certainly applies to those. But I’ve come to see that sadness falls under Peter’s instruction too. Sadness is a burden we carry, and Peter’s invitation is to cast all our burdens on God, not just the ones that look like traditional “anxiety.”
Why Sadness Counts as Anxiety
The Greek word Peter uses for anxiety is merimna, which means care, worry, or concern—but it carries a broader sense of being weighed down by cares. It’s about the burdens we carry, whatever form they take.
Sadness is absolutely a burden. It weighs on us. It affects how we move through the day, how we relate to others, how we experience even good moments. Whether it’s grief over a specific loss or a general melancholy we can’t quite explain, sadness is something we carry.
And carrying emotional weight alone—whether it’s worry about the future or sorrow about the present—is exactly what Peter says we’re not meant to do.
The Particular Weight of Sadness
What makes sadness different from anxiety or anger is how it affects our energy and hope.
Anxiety makes us restless, constantly scanning for threats or problems. Anger energizes us, even if that energy is destructive. But sadness does the opposite—it drains us. It makes everything feel harder, heavier, less worthwhile.
When I’m sad, even simple tasks feel exhausting. Conversations require more effort. Joy feels distant and inaccessible. There’s a tiredness that goes beyond physical fatigue—it’s an emotional and spiritual weariness.
This is why 1 Peter 5:7 matters so much for sadness specifically. Because when you’re sad, the idea of carrying your own burdens feels impossible. You don’t have the energy. You need someone else to bear the weight.
And that’s exactly what Peter says God offers: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Three Types of Sadness I’ve Learned to Cast on God
Over the years, I’ve noticed that my sadness usually falls into one of three categories. Each one needs to be cast on God in slightly different ways.
Sadness With a Clear Source
Sometimes sadness has an obvious cause: a loss, a disappointment, a relationship ending, bad news, a dream that didn’t work out.
This kind of sadness makes sense. You can point to it and say, “I’m sad because of this specific thing that happened.”
With this sadness, casting it on God looks like bringing the specific hurt to Him: “God, I’m grieving this loss. I’m disappointed by how this turned out. I’m carrying the weight of this pain, and I need you to hold it with me.”
The Greek word for “cast” (epirriptō) means to throw upon, to place upon. It’s an active, deliberate motion—taking this specific sadness and placing it on God instead of continuing to carry it myself.
Sadness Without a Clear Cause
Other times, sadness just shows up. I wake up feeling heavy, and I can’t point to any particular reason why. Nothing bad happened. Life is fine. But the sadness is still there.
This kind of sadness can be harder to bring to God because it feels less legitimate. If I can’t name a reason for it, does it even count? Should I just try to shake it off?
But 1 Peter 5:7 says “all your anxiety”—not just the anxiety with clear explanations. The sadness I can’t explain still counts as a burden worth casting on God.
With this sadness, my prayer looks different: “God, I don’t know why I feel this way, but I’m heavy. I’m bringing this weight to you even though I can’t name its source.”
Sadness That Lingers After Loss
Then there’s the sadness that persists long after the initial grief. The loss happened months or years ago, but waves of sorrow still show up unexpectedly. A song, a memory, a certain time of year—and suddenly the sadness is back.
This lingering sadness can feel like failure. Shouldn’t I be over this by now? Why am I still sad about something that happened so long ago?
But grief doesn’t follow a timeline, and sadness doesn’t expire. This ongoing sorrow is still a burden worth bringing to God, even if it’s the tenth or hundredth time you’ve brought it.
“Cast all your anxiety on him”—including the sadness that keeps returning.
What “Because He Cares for You” Means When You’re Sad
The second half of 1 Peter 5:7 is crucial: “because he cares for you.”
When I’m sad, I often feel like I shouldn’t bother God with it. Sadness can feel self-indulgent, especially if it doesn’t have a dramatic cause. There are people with real problems, serious suffering—and I’m just… sad. It feels petty to bring that to God.
But Peter doesn’t qualify which burdens matter to God. He says God cares for you—which means your sadness matters to Him because you matter to Him.
The Greek word for “cares” is melei, meaning to be of interest to, to be concerned about. Your sadness is of interest to God. He’s concerned about it. Not in a distant, obligatory way, but in a genuine, attentive way.
This truth has gradually changed how I relate to God when I’m sad. I don’t have to justify my sadness or prove it’s “bad enough” to warrant His attention. If it’s heavy enough to weigh me down, it’s significant enough to bring to Him.
A Different Structure: What Casting Sadness Actually Looks Like
Instead of listing steps, I want to share what casting sadness on God has actually looked like in different moments of my life. Because it’s not a formula—it’s a practice that takes different forms depending on the situation.
On a Tuesday morning when sadness showed up uninvited:
I was making coffee, and that familiar heaviness settled in. No particular reason. Just sad.
Instead of pushing through it or trying to manufacture positivity, I stopped and prayed out loud: “God, I’m sad this morning and I don’t know why. I’m giving this to you. I’m asking you to carry it because I can’t.”
The sadness didn’t instantly lift. But acknowledging it and releasing it to God meant I wasn’t carrying it alone as I moved through my day.
After receiving disappointing news:
A situation I’d hoped would work out differently fell through. The sadness was sharp and specific.
I sat with it for a while—let myself feel the disappointment fully. Then I prayed: “God, this hurts. I wanted this to go differently. I’m bringing this disappointment to you because it’s too heavy to carry myself.”
Casting the sadness didn’t erase the disappointment, but it did keep me from spiraling into despair or bitterness.
During a season of lingering grief:
Years after a significant loss, certain moments would trigger waves of sadness. I’d be fine, and then something small would bring it all back.
Each time it happened, I’d practice the same thing: “God, here it is again. I thought I was done grieving this, but apparently I’m not. I’m giving this wave of sorrow to you.”
Repetition didn’t mean I was doing it wrong. It meant sadness sometimes needs to be cast on God multiple times.
In the middle of a particularly heavy week:
Everything felt harder than it should. Small tasks took enormous effort. The sadness was making even normal life exhausting.
I didn’t have energy for elaborate prayers. I just kept repeating throughout the day: “God, you’re carrying this. I can’t.”
That simple reminder—that I wasn’t meant to bear this weight alone—made it possible to keep moving forward.
Why Sadness Feels Different in a Small Town
Small town life adds particular dimensions to sadness. When you live in a close-knit community, your emotional state is more visible. People notice when you’re not yourself. They ask if you’re okay. They have opinions about whether you should be “over” something by now.
This visibility can make sadness more complicated. There’s pressure to be fine, to bounce back quickly, to not burden others with your heaviness.
But 1 Peter 5:7 offers freedom from that pressure. I don’t have to perform being okay for my community. I can bring my sadness to God—who sees it all anyway, who isn’t put off by it, who doesn’t need me to be fine.
God can handle my sadness when I’m not sure my small-town church community can. He can hold my grief when I’m tired of people asking if I’m doing better yet. He can bear the weight when I don’t want to explain myself to another well-meaning neighbor.
When Sadness and Faith Coexist
One thing I’ve had to learn is that casting my sadness on God doesn’t mean sadness and faith can’t coexist.
For years, I thought being a “good Christian” meant not being sad—or at least not staying sad for long. Sadness felt like a sign of weak faith, like evidence that I wasn’t trusting God enough or finding my joy in Him.
But 1 Peter 5:7 assumes we’ll have burdens to cast. Peter doesn’t say “don’t have any anxiety”—he says cast the anxiety you do have on God.
I can be sad and have faith. I can grieve and still trust God. I can feel heavy and still believe He cares.
Casting my sadness on God isn’t about making it disappear so I can prove my faith is strong. It’s about letting God carry what I can’t, which is actually what faith looks like.
The Ongoing Practice of Casting Sadness
I used to think casting burdens on God was a one-time action. You pray, you release it, you move on.
But sadness has taught me it’s more like a repeated practice. The same sadness often needs to be cast on God multiple times. Not because I didn’t do it right the first time, but because burdens have a way of creeping back.
I’ll cast my sadness on God in the morning, feel some relief, and then find myself carrying it again by afternoon. So I cast it again.
This isn’t failure. It’s faithfulness—the ongoing practice of refusing to bear alone what God has offered to carry.
Finding Scripture That Speaks to Your Sadness
Different emotions need different biblical wisdom. Sadness requires different verses than anxiety, anger, or loneliness—though there’s often overlap.
If you’re looking for Bible verses that speak specifically to what you’re feeling in any given moment, that’s why I created The Bible Jar. It’s a simple web app that connects your current emotion to relevant Scripture. When you’re sad and need God’s word but don’t know where to start, it can point you toward verses that speak directly into that experience.
What I’m Still Learning About Sadness and Faith
I’m not “good” at being sad. I still resist it, still wish it would go away faster, still feel like it’s a burden I should be able to shake off on my own.
But 1 Peter 5:7 keeps inviting me into a different way: bring it to God. Cast it on Him. Let Him carry what you can’t.
The sadness doesn’t always disappear when I do this. But I’m learning that the point isn’t to eliminate sadness—it’s to not carry it alone.
God cares about my sadness because He cares about me. That truth doesn’t fix everything, but it does mean I have somewhere to take the weight when it gets too heavy.
And some days, that’s exactly what I need—not for the sadness to be gone, but for someone to help me carry it.
That someone is God. And He’s invited me to cast it all on Him.
So that’s what I’m learning to do, one sad day at a time.