Vacation time is here...get ready to pack and travel light!

So school has ended and graduations are over so it is time to go on vacation. I assume I am not the only one who over-packs. I over-pack because I want to be prepared for whatever my comes my way. Prepared! So my luggage looks like "Let's make a deal" on steroids! If we are going somewhere cold...bring a sleeveless shirt...you never know when a heat wave will flow your way. When we are going somewhere warm...bring a coat...there may be a cold front coming in. I feel the need to pack dresses, shirts,  and pants and shorts...be prepared to look proper at all places. And because of all the outfits, you have to pack appropriate shoes, jewelry, and don't get me started on the make-up! Doesn't everyone pack a different lipstick for each outfit...a nude, a red, a pink, a bright pink, a soft pink, a coral, a gloss.....oh well. Moving on, I always pack something to occupy my time in the car, on the plane, or aboard the boat...you never know what you might be in the mood to read....fiction, non-fiction, romance, sci-fi, or maybe a gardening magazine, or a cottage home magazine, a knitting magazine, or a crafts magazine. And then, in case I don't feel like reading....do I want to quilt or knit, write in my journal, or sketch in my sketch book....decisions, decisions, decisions...so just pack it all! And this is just since my children have grown up....you should have seen our luggage when they were traveling with us! LOL....I packed the regular stuff...clothes, sweaters, shoes, their blankets, their animal shaped pillows, their drinking cups, healthy snacks, and fun snacks, a few special treats. I thought everyone carried color books, and crayons, mini jars of play dough, stickers and sticker books, a few trucks, a baby doll, fisher price cassette player, tapes, books that go with the tapes...I NEED TO BE PREPARED!

After all I just told you, shut your eyes a moment and picture me dragging all that luggage through an airport. I must look like a pack mule. Imagine me in my driveway loading all these bags into the trunk of the car....heave ho! What energy and time it takes....I am worn out just imagining it. Now, let me ask you a question about your spiritual life....are you packing light or carrying too much extra baggage? What! you might be saying!? Think about a row of luggage set out before you. You pack one small bag with the "normal" things in life....joy, love, blessings, and and a few insecurities, problems, or issues tucked in here and there. We are human...we all have a few things we are working on...we won't be totally free til we leave this life. So that fits neatly into one suitcase. But now, are you choosing to fill up one more, two more, many more? Are you packing and carrying luggage full of burdens Jesus never meant for you to carrying? Are you worn out, exhausted, spent from lugging a heavy load that you were never intended to carry? How many times during the day do you pick up an extra bag of burdens without even realizing it? Stop for just a moment again and think about the conversations you have had lately? How about the thoughts that have run through your mind....have you noticed some one's behavior to you lately? Through these things have you picked up burdens of arrogance, disappointment, fear, doubt, shame, loneliness, guilt, discontentment? I know I have chosen to over-pack myself with burdens just as I over-pack for a trip. As much as God has been dealing with my physical over-packing, he is also dealing with me lugging around the luggage of spiritual burdens...It is EXHAUSTING! God has been telling me to let go, you are not the only one on this trip, my arms are stronger than yours! How can you share grace if you are full of guilt? How can you offer comfort if you are disheartened? How can you uplift someone else when you are full of doubt? How can you humbly walk in others shoes if you are filled with arrogance? Set down those extra bags, that load that the Father does not intended for you to carry and let Him pick them up. God wants you and me to pack light and travel light. He wants us not to be burdened so that we can serve him. He wants us to feel joy instead of exhaustion. God has a great trip for us in this life...and he wants us to travel light so we are able to go where he wants us to go, do what he desires us to do, serve where we have never dreamed of serving.

Turn your burdens over to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will never let the righteous stumble. Psalm 55:22

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