Have you ever thought while living you would find yourself caught between life and death?
This life and death I speak of is both the world and the afterlife, the world meaning death, and life of course, meaning our eternal life in heaven.
We reach a point in our lives where we decide to accept and believe in the Lord and naturally, we want to live right because of this; we want to follow God and live a life that is holy and acceptable and pleasing to Him.
But… we find ourselves stuck, stuck right at the middle of life and death.
No Baggage Beyond This Point!
Perhaps this ‘stuck’ feeling is because we want to carry baggage from our worldly living onto the path of life and we just cannot do that.
This path requires us to drop our baggage to make room for God. After all scripture clearly states,
“Jesus said we must deny ourselves and pick up our cross and follow Him”
(Matthew 16:24)
How can we pick our cross if we are holding onto our baggage i.e., our worldly ways?
We all have baggage
We all have baggage, and in those bags contain bad habits, behaviors motivated by fleshly desires, and other things that has held us bondage.
They even kept us and gave us the comfort and temporary relief we needed when things got hard and stressful in our lives.
When we were overwhelmed, we would sit and open those bags and partake in whatever our comforter was, that we created for ourselves. These can be:
- Alcohol/Drunkenness
- Sexual addictions
- Drugs
- Speaking down to ourselves
- Anger
- Self-harm
- Abusive behaviors towards others (verbally and/or physically)
- Burying ourselves in work for an escape
- Taking ourselves back to people, places, and deep, dark pits that we just do not belong and that is not good for us.
I can tell you, from personal experience, because that is the only way I can relate this, it is hard and basically impossible, to carry that baggage and try to carry God in our hearts too.
But it’s hard to give up my baggage, I like it
I know, trust me, I know it feels like, “but this baggage contains things that have gotten me through the toughest times of my life.
I drank, and that pain numbed, I was in a relationship or ‘situation-ship’ with them and they distracted me from the hurt. I went on vacation to escape. I stayed busy doing this or that to not focus on the thing that really needs my attention, my baggage was all I had.
I cannot possibly think or imagine when I hit turmoil again what would give me the relief and comfort I need, like this bottle of alcohol does or this drug or this person or this place or this thing does.”
Afterall, it is hard to know what you just do not know, it is hard to see what you have not seen before, but remember we are told to,
“Walk by faith and not by sight.”
(2 Corinthians 5:7)
We must be faith sighted
Let the baggage go
Let us think about where we are and what we are doing and begin to recondition our minds to choosing life fully.
We must do this because,
“When we let our sinful nature control us, it leads to death but letting the spirit control us, leads to life and peace.”
(Romans 8:6)
Therefore, we must put down the baggage which only contains contents that is pleasing to our sinful nature. We have to let it go to make room in our hearts to carry God and our cross. We cannot carry all three.
I am not saying that we must be perfect, but we can strive to be our best and do our best.
You and I both know we got some things that need to go, need to be cut off and left behind because they are weighing us down and hindering us from truly walking on the path that leads to life, freely and unburdened.
Make a List!
I have a small, simple activity for you. Get a pen and paper or use your phone, and make a note of your personal baggage items.
List all the things you know you need to stop doing, the things that are just temporary fixes, reliefs, and comforts you created for yourself, but are not actually good for you and definitely not good for your spirit.
List them all out and become aware of them in a way you have never seen them before.
Self-awareness is key
So please take this time and list all the things you need to leave behind and are going to start leaving behind. Analyze yourself and become aware of all bags you are holding onto that are weighing you down and keeping you back in life.
Work towards letting each one go, one step at a step. Change takes time so be patient with yourself. But be aware that you need to