Lost Baggage

“But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 3:13-14)

Are there certain people or events in your past that have caused rooted feelings of regret, remorse, injustice, or disappointment? These hang-ups can build up and settle deep down in our hearts, distracting and nibbling away at our attitudes toward life. I am pretty sure that we know that when we carry around too much baggage, our bodies grow weary and our minds become cloudy and cluttered with negativity.  But letting go isn’t always easy, as a matter of fact it can be very hard! Our tendency is to hold on because these things tend to become attachments, however the longer we carry it the worse it gets, because when we continually hang on to something we aren’t allowing ourselves to move forward and we are carrying useless baggage that’s really slowing us down.

Letting go means…

To move or proceed (especially to or from something)

To leave a place; depart

To attempt to obtain; strive for

To proceed without hesitation or delay

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

What would our life be like if we let go of our resentment and anger over things that are beyond our control, or if we let go of the pain we have been carrying from things that happened long ago? For most of us, we muster all our faith to believe that everything will work out in the end…but we struggle daily…we give our problems to God then take them back again. Being in control makes us feel safe and secure but often turns into a bad habit that very often gets us nowhere and our little controllable world gets more and more fragile. When we learn to let go of some control we are taking a step closer to having total faith and trust in God, and we begin to accept the reality that God’s wisdom is ever present and available; He can fill every void and the emptiness we feel when we battle feelings of pain and discontent. That’s when we know we’ve surrendered to God; when we rely on Him to work things out instead of holding on to past regrets. God wants us to give Him…surrender to Him…everything that is not of Him, and grow rather than to remain stuck in in a place or situation that is holding us back.

“God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

There is really no point hanging on to past regrets or grudges because (most of the time) there is really nothing we can do about what has happened except to learn from it. If we don’t like where we are at in this moment, it is our decision to make a different choice and move forward instead of being stuck in the past. As long as we live we will deal with setbacks, missed opportunities, painful relationships, and tons of mistakes, but we can’t waste our time mourning for things we can’t change because we miss the opportunities of the present. God created us with everything we need in order to be used by Him, and we have to stop allowing the things that we encounter along the way to become baggage that prevent us from moving forward. When we truly let go and let God, the result is that we‘ve lost most of the fear and unhappiness that we have been carrying and we slow down long enough to allow God to take control over our lives.

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