Unclaimed Baggage
We each carry around baggage filled with dark, painful life experiences — choices made, words and actions spoken and perpetuated by others or even by ourselves. These things are easily believed fully in the darkness where they reside and hide, in the very depths of our wounded and ragged hearts and souls.
Some of us travel this life carrying around an overnight bag. Others manage to precariously carry full-sized luggage aided by spindly wheels. Some have filled an overly cumbersome steam trunk that can no longer be carried but is visited regularly to add to its contents.
As we live our lives, more experiences are stuffed into this baggage others do not have privy to. And we try to present ourselves to the world as having it all together. All together? Spare me the truth. The truth? Well, here’s the truth.
None of us have it all together all the time. None of us come out of this life unscathed. We all have doubts. We all have voices proclaiming we are not the best or the brightest or the prettiest. We all wish some things in our lives had been different. Better. We all make bad choices. We all slip and fall. We all fail. Hopefully we all get up again when we do.
Simply put, we all have baggage. Not so simply put, we have to decide what we carry in it and for how long. We determine which of it we keep and what we throw away. We decide what impact it will have and for how long. We give it the power to hold us down — to determine who we are in our own eyes.
In our own eyes? Perhaps that’s the real issue here. We see our untrue self through the reflection of others. We determine our worth from the words and actions of those, just as flawed and baggage burdened as we are. We see ourselves with vision blurred from a life of carrying around baggage that was never meant to be ours.
The baggage we carry is actually unclaimed baggage never meant to be picked up by us or anyone else. It’s been left by the side of the road of all our lives — every day — waiting there to be claimed by someone. Anyone. By us. And we claimed it. Picked it up, filled it up, locked it up but didn’t throw away the key so we could add to it.
There’s no disgrace in that. NO. DISGRACE. But know this. Please know this. This baggage filled with lies and deceit and disgrace is an entrapment from the one who wishes to destroy our very souls. The father of lies litters our life’s roads with his traps: painful dark experiences — choices made, words and actions spoken and perpetrated by others or even ourselves.
There’s a battle going on in the spiritual realm we with human eyes cannot see, a battle between darkness and light — lies and truth. And that battle begins in the very heart and mind and soul of each of His children. It begins with the very baggage we chose to carry daily. We simply cannot be all or completely who we were created to be while we carry it.
The only way to get rid of the baggage is to open it up to the light of truth. To the light of Jesus, the One Who defeated the father of lies before time began. Darkness only hides the truth. Light overcomes it. It has since the beginning of time.
Easy to say but not to do? So true. So true. But here goes…
I open up my battered baggage, tossing out the filthy rags that attached themselves to my wounded and ragged heart and soul for so much of my life. I burn it all on the refining fire of Christ — all those dark, painful life experiences — choices made, words and actions spoken and perpetrated by others or even by myself. Then I throw the baggage onto the fire. I have no need of it now.
Every day from now on I am choosing to travel light. I am choosing to believe what He says about me. What. He. Says. I choose to fight and win this and every battle with the strength of my Warrior King.
I know I will be tempted over and over to pick up the unclaimed baggage again. But every time I pass by that baggage that’s been left by the side of the road of my life, I will no longer claim it as mine. With His constant help I will not. Because it was never mine to pick up. And it never will be.
Jackie Deems copyright 2024
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:10–12
