Some of you may be checking baggage this summer as you vacation with your family or travel for business.
Checking baggage can be a pain at times: long lines, weight limits, and all the other potential red tape. But what a relief to turn it over to someone else after carrying that heavy load through the maze of checkpoints and scurrying travelers.
We all have lots of emotional and spiritual baggage in our lives as well. When we have kids, just as the actual number of bags we have to carry on a trip multiplies ("Mom, will you hold this for me?"), so does our emotional and spiritual baggage. Not only are we concerned with our own feelings and spiritual state, but we pray for, and then worry about, what's going through out kids' minds and hearts.
Although I still have a ways to go, I'm learning to pack a bit more lightly when I travel. I don't like trudging around with a hundred pounds of luggage while trying to look like I know where I'm going. I'm down to one suitcase (medium size) most of the time. A far cry from the three large suitcases I used to take to camp for a week or the five matched pieces my husband and I lugged through the airport on our honeymoon, one of which was never even opened. (That would be the extra clothes he packed for himself, not trusting that what was packed on my advice would be sufficient!)
Sometimes it's hard to let go of our stuff and trust that what we can carry will see us through. The internal baggage is even harder to let go of, and since we can't actually see mounds of it stacked up and waiting to fall on us, we tend to ignore it.
But that friend who insulted us whom we just can't seem to forgive or that temptation we've been wrestling with and holding on to instead of handing over to the Lord will trip us, crush us and wear us out faster than any mountain of physical baggage.
Psalm 55:22 says, "Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall." A song I helped teach our kids choir worded it like this: "Give your worries to the Lord; He will take good care of you; He will never let His people down."
That words are referring to all the "stuff" we carry around inside. The Lord sees it and He wants to take it from us and lift us up to a higher place, closer to Him.
Spend ten minutes this week unloading your spiritual baggage. (It's even better than shedding pound for summer!)