Checked Baggage

Dear Friends,

Recently my wife and I had the privilege of taking a trip to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. As we were loading up the car to head to the airport, I was struck by how much baggage we had. To be honest, it was a bit surprising, as my wife and I are usually light packers when it comes to traveling. But because we didn’t have any limits on how much we could pack for this particular trip, it was easy to take a lot of stuff with us.

The problem was, by the time we lugged it from our house to the car to the airport to the check-in counter, we were exhausted! And as I sat in my seat on the plane, thinking about how much physical baggage we were carrying with us, it occurred to me that all too often we carry “emotional baggage” in our lives as well. Whether it’s guilt, depression, weariness, anger, loneliness, or fear - there are a vast amount of things that we carry with us through life. And just like with carrying physical luggage, it’s exhausting.

The good news is that God has given us a way to deal with our emotional baggage, and Jesus tells us about it in Matthew 11:28, where He says: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” In this passage, Jesus helps us understand that He is ready and willing to take our burdens from us. All we need to do is come to Him and lay them down. Then, through the power of His Holy Spirit working in us, we can experience the true freedom of giving our cares and worries and fears to Him. Jesus will take our worldly baggage from us, and replace it with the gift of joy, and hope, and healing.

So today, let’s take Jesus’ advice. Let’s go to Him and experience His rest. Let’s allow God to do the heavy lifting in our lives, as we surrender all of our cares and worries and fears to Him.

Amen?

Daniel