Yesterday’s Baggage

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. — Colossians 3:12-15

Kathy and I laughed today at some pictures we found of us when we first moved to Chicago from Canada in the mid-1980’s. We retold some stories from those days and shook our heads at how young we were “back then” -how wonderfully clueless.
In those early years, we didn’t yet realize how life has a way of piling up on you. You just don’t see it when you’re young. By the time you flip a few pages on the calendar, you can look back on choices you wish you had made differently and situations you hoped would have turned out better. All of a sudden a few years, then a few decades have gone by, and stuff has really started to pile up.

Life moves so fast. It’s easy to just stick unresolved conflict and hurts in a drawer. Then something else happens and since the drawer has filled up, you find a spot on a shelf somewhere. And let’s say you move to a new place, so now you pack up all that crud and put it in a box in the attic of your new place. Before you know, you need a serious garage sale and I’m not talking about dumping old lamps, baby clothes, and exercise equipment. You need to get rid of all the harbored hurts of times when people disappointed you, all the rejection you’ve stuffed away, and all the situations that unfolded the way you hoped they never would. Unless you deal with these burdens God’s way, no matter where you move to get away from it, you’ll drag your carry-on baggage with you.

Has anyone ever told you that God didn’t make you with the capacity to carry forward all that negative weight from your past? He doesn’t expect you to. He gives you His ability to forgive in order to free you from the hurt of relational failure. Colossians 3:13, “bear with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgive each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

The older I get, the more I realize that if you want the kind of life that God promises you, you must become an expert at forgiveness. You need to be the best person in your family at forgiveness-the best person at your church and work, the best person on your street at this all important biblical, necessary, required skill.

I’ve said it for years, “there are no enduring relationships without forgiveness.” Is there someone who you need to forgive? My guess is that the Lord is bringing their face to your mind right now. Ask Him to begin His work of mercy and grace in your heart. The last thing you need in 2008 is yesterday’s baggage.

© 2007 Walk in the Word.

On this day...

• Ezra 1 - 2023
• 2 Samuel 5 - 2023
• Deuteronomy 26:2 - 2016
• Mercy's Master Motive - 2011
• 1 John 5 - 2011
• 1 John 4 - 2011
• Sin that so easy entangles - 2011
• One soul's fate is placed in your hands - 2011
• Let us submit to the will of God - 2011
• None can help us but Christ - 2011