Baggage
Baggage… it’s really important when you’re going somewhere to have the things needed for that trip at hand and ready to use.
Baggage doesn’t sound good, though, if it’s referring to something I’m bringing from my past that is harmful into the present. Even when my baggage is good (“from childhood you have known the scriptures…” 2 Tim 3:15-17), I need to be sure that it doesn’t separate me from others but allow God to pull it out and use it at His will.
Knowing, as I do now, that God is for us, not against us (Rom 8:31), and that everything goes through His hands (“having been predestined according to His purpose…” Eph 1:11), how do I reconcile some of the things that happened in my past with the truth that God is good?
One such instance in my life is when I went to jail for a month and then when I got out I met Jan (my wife). I wouldn’t have met her had I not been detained for that month! That one had results I could see immediately, but what about the beatings I received as a kid that made me an anger driven man? What about the things that happened in Viet Nam that made me hate authority? Where was God in those times? Where was the “work all things together for good…”? I’m not going to say that God planned for those things to happen, but He DID know that he had given man free will, and He DID know that sometimes they were going to use that free will to do evil things – AND He knew just how He was going to use them in my life!
To get back to the baggage idea...God, in a sense, placed those items in my ‘baggage’ so that I would have them when I needed them. I didn’t know God then, but He knew me and had a plan for my life. Currently, I help with workshops where my past, and God’s redemption of it, help people to see that God can do the same thing for them. I now see truth and even some of the “why?” for my past. I can agree with Jeremiah quoting God saying, “The Lord appeared of old to me saying 'I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you.'” (Jer 31:3) That ‘everlasting love’ didn’t look like love to me then, but I can see how the fruit of it today totally outweighs the suffering of not only what happened to me but the regrets for the things I have done! (Rom 8:18)
God’s loving-kindness has been behind this whole journey of mine; He pointed out what I’d need, even some that I had forgotten, and He brought healing to the areas of pain to make them usable in His hands. He didn’t forget anything that I would need and didn’t put anything in my bags that He wouldn’t use. I guess that a bottom line is to check all my bags for this trip--no carry-ons (“take nothing for your journey” Mk 6:8)! I don’t need, and it isn’t appropriate for me, to be carrying a suitcase of hurts all the time. Jesus, and His healing, is sufficient! I need to be fully engaged in the present and, in a sense, allow Holy Spirit to be my valet, to hand me the items I need when I need them. (Mk 13:11) That is walking in freedom!