Overweight baggage 🧳

Traveling through tough times while hauling too much weight is difficult. The coronavirus and its consequences have caused us to shed some unnecessary stuff and get rid of junk. It’s even exposed weaknesses in our organizations, finances, families, and churches. Yikes!

Have you felt the pressure of this pandemic?

Long-distance travel is the closest analogy I can compare to this challenge of a pandemic. I’ve been stopped with the overweight bag dilemma on more than one occasion. I’ve had to remove heavy objects and leave them at the airport as gifts to an unknown traveler. Maple syrup, books, and various nicknacks have all been left behind. I’ve even paid for the extra weight.

Extra weight slows you down and costs you money. I believe all of us have struggled with compromise, failures, and even direct disobedience to God. Trials and tribulations often expose our hidden baggage and those things that weigh us down.

James tells us we should “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” (James 1:2-3, NIV)

Perhaps during this trial, you let go of the excess weight that has hindered you for years. Insecurity, fear, jealousy, bitterness, and shame can be dropped at the emotional dump. Peter says to “Cast all your anxiety on him because He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7, NIV) God loves you. He wants to help you be free of the garbage slowing you down. Use the pain of this trial to help you change and be free.

What’s consuming your emotional and spiritual energy? Can you spend a few moments today to get rid of these things? Have you confessed to God, a pastor, a counselor, or a priest? It’s time to realize that we’ve all sinned and fallen short but God’s grace is bigger and stronger. Carrying heavy burdens takes a lot more energy than laying them down.

You’re worth it because you are a miracle.

Your friend, Paul Marc Goulet