Foolish baggage …

A couple terms many of my counseling or fitness training clients learn are detoxing (cleansing our bodies and/or minds from toxic substances or toxic thinking) and dehabituating (ridding ourselves of negative habits, replacing them with positive habits).

That’s because we commonly stifle positive forward progress in life with negative (often sinful) habits or toxic traits (mental, emotional, and physical). As long as we entertain these destructive habits or toxic practices, we remain unable to become the person God wants us to be, and live the life God would have us live.

Foolish baggage can impact your life to that degree.

A popular example that encapsulates the foolishness of “foolish baggage” is the story of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, which sailed in 1845 from England to find a passage across the Arctic Ocean:

The crew loaded their two sailing ships with a lot of things they didn’t need: a 1,200-volume library, fine china, crystal goblets, and sterling silverware for each officer with his initials engraved on the handles. Amazingly, each ship took only a 12-day supply of coal for their auxiliary steam engines.

The ships became trapped in vast frozen plains of ice. After several months, Lord Franklin died. The men decided to trek to safety in small groups, but none of them survived.

One story is especially heartbreaking. Two officers pulled a large sled more than 65 miles across the treacherous ice. When rescuers found their bodies, they discovered that the sled was filled with table silver.

Those men contributed to their own demise by carrying what they didn’t need. But don’t we sometimes do the same? Don’t we drag baggage through life that we don’t need? Evil thoughts that hinder us. Bad habits that drag us down. Grudges that we won’t let go.

Beyond the terrible things we do to our bodies that cry out for detoxing, or the habits of thought, emotion, and behavior that desperately need dehabituating from, we also weigh down our lives with hindrances of sin that stifle the fullness of life Jesus desire we experience. And so, the writer of Hebrews challenges us:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us,” Hebrews 12:1.

How do we do that?

“We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up,” Hebrews 12:2-3.

If you really want to experience the fullness of life Jesus has for you (John 10:10), you will have to do whatever it takes to detox, dehabituate, and “… strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.” The outcome is worth the effort and the cost.

Scotty