I recently went to New Jersey to speak at a women’s conference with my friend and co-author, Shauna Pilgreen. The conference was an incredible weekend where we met new sisters in Christ and were encouraged by God’s truth in His word. After the two day conference, Shauna and I stayed in New York for a couple of days taking in all of the sights. I had packed one large suitcase weighing almost 50 pounds, a carry on with The Same Page books and The Pearl House merchandise, and my very large purse (in New Jersey they call it a pocketbook, although mine could be defined as a bag that needed to be checked). All to say, I was loaded down with heavy baggage. Did I mention I am about 8 months pregnant? So, you can see some possible foreshadowing. As we “gracefully” made it on the train to New York, we had a decision to make upon arrival: Do we take the subway and save money or do we take a taxi to get to our hotel? We decided that we are strong independant women who could take the subway with no problems. Let’s just say that we ended up going the wrong direction, and there were no elevators and escalators when we needed them. This resulted in me standing at the bottom of the steps with Shauna taking one bag at a time up the steps, hoping that no one at the top of the steps decided they liked the look of our bag and wanted to make it their own. There were many, 14 all together, that stopped and asked us if we needed help. (I think we looked pretty pitiful) Some would carry our baggage for a while, others would give us directions, one man even purchasd our bus ticket. (that’s a whole other story) After an hour, we finally arrived at our hotel, got to our room, and dropped off our baggage. It was so freeing to have nothing to carry as we continued our evening in New York.
How many times do we do this as Christians? We carry so much baggage, weighing us down and keeping us from running the race God has set before us. Sometimes there are others in our lives that try and help, that even take our “load” for a while, they try and help by giving us “direction”, but in the end we are left with weight and carrying our load again. There is only One who can ultimately take our load, our cares, our worries, our doubts, our fears, our insecurites, our weaknesses – and His name is Jesus. There is no other sweeter name I know! 1 Peter 5:7, Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
Have you done just that? Have you cast everything upon Him and given Hiim your everything, including your back up plans, your “securities” you are holding onto, and your control. He is waiting and He can take all baggage, there is no extra charge to “check” a bag and no weight limit with Him.