Excess Baggage

I recently went on a holiday…. and I gained 3 kilo’s! There is a whole “fitness and health” industry to tell me how to lose the extra kilo’s I gained on my holiday, but there is also a weight we carry that is not physical and possibly harder to get rid of.

The weight I’m talking about is the emotional weight…. the baggage we carry in our souls. Hurt, disappointment, betrayal, regret, bitterness…. the list goes on.

I was listening to a podcast recently and the guy was talking about lifting your hands in worship, and he said “you can’t lift your hands in worship if you are holding on to stuff.” This is so true.

We can go through life carrying baggage from every big or small thing that has ever been done to us, and unless we deal with it and let it go, it will continue to hold us back from achieving everything we were created to be. All our God given dreams and desires get blocked and stifled because we hang on to our need for justice, the need for revenge. The need for someone to acknowledge our pain. But, the truth is that you will probably never get justice or revenge… or the other person to acknowledge your pain. I heard someone say once that “holding bitterness and unforgiveness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” We can hold on to our pain, but it will make no difference to the person who hurt us… the only person we will ever impact is ourselves.

Have you ever seen someone struggling through an airport with their suitcase, their laptop, their hand luggage and a backpack? It’s not easy to successfully manoeuvre that much stuff! The burden doesn’t get lifted until they check some of their baggage at the check in counter and are left with only what they need to take on the plane.

It’s the same with us. We need to check our excess baggage at the ‘check in counter’… the foot of the cross. Jesus died so that we could live an abundant life, free from unnecessary baggage.  John 10:10 NIV The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. We have an enemy who wants to keep us bound to the chains of our past. But we don’t have to live in that place of bondage. It’s unproductive and it’s unhealthy. The other thing about excess baggage at the airport is that it comes with a cost. You have to pay for it. Holding on to your emotional excess baggage also comes with a cost…. a hefty cost… to your health and relationships. Is it worth it?

God’s mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23) which means that every morning we can choose to have a clean slate with which to start our day. 1 Peter 5:7 NLT Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. We have a place where we can leave our hurts and pain. God loves you and desires for you to live a life of fullness in Him, but He has also given us free will. We can hang on to our stuff, or we can give it to Him. The choice is completely ours. I know which choice I would rather make.

What baggage do you need to get rid of today?