EXCESS BAGGAGE

It seems like nowadays if you have excess baggage it is going to cost you.  If you fly anywhere, you’ve got to pack stuff really tight.  Anything that can’t be carried on board is going to cost you – and in some cases even the stuff you carry on board will have a fee.  It makes you think about stuff that you really don’t need.  In the “old days”, you might pack a few extra outfits just in case you need them.  Now you’re thinking that maybe you can wear each outfit twice and only pack half of what you need.

We have excess baggage in our emotional and/or spiritual lives as well.  Things we have hung onto since childhood, religious habits or traumatic events in our lives.  Instead of dealing with it, we have packed it away into the corners of our heart.  We carry it with us wherever we go.  And it is costing us dearly.  Every now and then we run into an old hurt and bam – the baggage pops open and a flood of hurt comes pouring out.  Some of us pack away bitterness and resentment and we tell ourselves that we are over it but it is really still there waiting for an opportunity to bust open.  Some of us pack away hurt feelings and abuses we have endured at the hands of another.  We don’t really want to feel all those old hurts again but that is exactly what happens.  We don’t really want to carry it around with us but somehow that is what we end up doing.

Matthew 11:28-30, a familiar verse that we all know but here it is: ‘Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  If our burden is heavy, it is because we have overloaded ourselves.  Jesus says that His burden is light.  Wouldn’t we rather have a light burden? I know I would.  Jesus wants our baggage.  I want to give it to Him.  But each time I do, somehow I find it again, rearrange the contents and lock it back up.

What’s the solution?  Well, we all know that Jesus is the answer.  But how do we do that practically?  How can we really give it to Him and not take the burden back onto ourselves?  The only way that I know how to do it is by praying at the exact time that it hits me.  I still carry around some old baggage.  I long to be rid of it.  Little by little I am making progress.  Each time something happens that triggers one of my old “bags” to pop open, I immediately start praying.  I try not to over-react to the current situation.  My emotions may still take over but I am praying through them.  Lately, I have noticed that it doesn’t take as long as it used to.  I haven’t gotten rid of all the bags yet, but the load does seem to be lighter than it was.

Remember that we have an enemy and he knows what our baggage is.  He will certainly go out of his way to put people in our path that are going to “push our buttons” that cause our bags to pop open and all our hurts to fall out.  He will use the people we love to say the exact thing that will cause those old wounds to open up.  We can continue to collect the hurts and add them to our already over-stuffed bags, or we can run to Jesus and ask Him to “kiss our boo-boo and make it all better.”  We can go to Jesus like a child runs to his/her mommy after a fall, knowing that the boo-boo is going to be all better with just one kiss.  They KNOW, they don’t just think it, but they KNOW that mommy is going to make it all better.  We need to KNOW that Jesus will take our burdens.   In return, He gives us peace and rest.  What a trade!