Baggage

Baggage … it’s not only something that we pack and carry with us when traveling.  It is often what we carry around with us day after day, year after year.  It’s that aggravating burden, thought, worry, guilt, shame – whatever – that chips away at our peace night and day.  We ignore it, or at least we try to, but it keeps popping up its ugly head.  We bury it, or so we think, and it suddenly is uncovered again.  We beat it down until there couldn’t possibility be a shred of life in it anymore, and yet it shows up time and time again when we least expect it. 

It hinders our relationships, our fun, our growth, our happiness and it’s heavy to carry around.  It often makes us who we are, not what we’d like to become.  What to do?  Paul said in Romans (chapter 7, starting with verse 15) that even though he knew to do the right thing, he still did the things he did not want to do and was sometimes unable to do the things that he knew he should do or even those things that he wanted to do.  After consideration he said that there was a war going on between his mind and his reason.  His conclusion was that God could do in his life what he could not do on his own.

How many times do we battle our battles alone without the help of our Lord who desires to be strong for us, to relieve us of the things we cannot handle by ourselves.  But we just continue to plod along carrying our old heavy burdens that keep us from developing and growing into the person that He has planned for us to become.  Why do we find it so hard to part with our old problems?  Could it be a sense of security that comes from dealing with the familiar no matter how difficult and our fear of the unknown, the new, and perhaps the exciting adventure that awaits us if we were to let go of the things that are weighing heavy on us? 

Why not make the decision now to seriously consider giving up some of the old baggage in our lives, turn it over to the “Conductor” who has already paid the price and is more than willing to carry it for us?  Food for thought … maybe life could be a little brighter and the load a little lighter if we would just let get of some excess baggage.

Blessings, Ann