Excess Baggage
Hebrews 12:1 says – “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” – (KJV)
I’m sure that all of you have been on a trip. Took a flight. Walked through an airport and had to go through security check. They took your baggage. Right? You are now ready for your journey. Ready to go to the next new place or next old familiar place. But wait, there is a problem. You can’t get through security. There is something wrong with your baggage, your carry on.
They TSA finds that something is not appropriate for the journey. The security people stop you and inform you that you cannot get on this flight because of what is in your luggage. You have to make some changes. They pilfer and go through your most precious belongings and see what is there.
Why? Because what you carry is potentially a problem to the flight or to those on the flight. You now have to do something with what you are carrying.
They may say you need to repack this or take some things out. You cannot continue the journey with what you are carrying. Wow!
How appropriate is that same statement in our own personal lives.
WE cannot continue our journey with God carrying what’s in our baggage or emotional luggage. You have to deal with this problem. You have to deal with you.
But sin is expensive and it’s always in excess. It always costs you more than when you started down that road of temporary pleasure.
It will cost you more to carry that excess in your baggage at the airport and the same way in your emotional life. Emotional baggage is costly. Mental baggage is costly. The weight of it will cost you more than you want to pay, if left unaddressed.
I tell all of my clients that what you don’t deal with will deal with you. So what is dealing with most women? Here is a list of what could probably be in your baggage:
Fear, rejection, failure, anger, unforgiveness, abuse, rape, fornication, divorce, painful memories, loneliness, anxiety, hatred, hiding, lust, malice, jealousy, orphan heart, self-protection, disappointment, sinful patterns, and your just in case plan.
These things in your emotional baggage won’t serve you well. They are just holding you back from finishing the thing the you need to start.
Jesus paid the ultimate price for your salvation, for your freedom, for YOU. Let’s go back to the TSA check point. There you are. All ready to go through and let’s say this time you meet Jesus instead of the regular person.
Jesus is there and He greets you and tells you that you don’t need all that those things you are dragging behind you to board. You look behind you not even realizing, for the first time perhaps, that you have been dragging all the things behind you.
Yet, you are. He says you don’t need them. But you tell Him that you do and that you don’t know who you are without them. You tell Jesus that you need the fear, the orphan thinking and the self-protection.
See those things have become your identity. You don’t know the real you without all your baggage. But Jesus proceeds to tell you that you cannot use them where you are going with Him. You see my friend, all those things you have been carrying around are not a part of the plan God has for you or part of the kingdom of God.
Where you are going with God, love doesn’t hurt. Fear has no power. Just like an airplane that is too heavy to take off, it can’t get lift. You won’t get lift either. You won’t get to where you are going so weighted down.
No amount of hiding, burying or ignoring will make it go away. All this baggage is what is hindering your relationships with your spouse, your friends, family, your momma, your sister, or whoever. All this baggage is weight that is causing you to stumble and fall.
You have to want to change more than you want to stay the same.
A lot of us had a lot of things done to us wrongly. A lot of what is wrong inside women is because of this but what do we do. We now see the baggage. Now what? You realize you can’t stay here in this barren place in your soul. Now what?
You must come to yourself like the prodigal son did. There comes a point you have to own where you are like the prodigal son did and come to your senses and say I will go home to God. I will not stay an orphan or lost person any longer. The Lord has not given up on you. Give Him your excess baggage and get lift in your life. Soar to the highest places with Him.
Just because you see these things in your life doesn’t mean that they have to stay there. God will use people to help you and free you himself. He said in His word He would never leave you like an orphan, and He won’t. Meet Him and give up the baggage you carry whatever it is. Give up this extra excessive weight as the scripture describes. Do it today and get on with the journey of your life.
