We dumped everything out of my son’s backpack that he didn’t need to take to school that day. What was left was about 1/3 of what he’d stuffed into it. And when he put it on, he said he felt like something necessary had to be missing. It felt too light.
How much of what we carry around with us in our minds and hearts — in our souls — is necessary? How many of those things don’t seem like much but add up to a heavy weight by both time and accumulation?
There is freedom in the letting go.
Letting go of responsibilities we really have no business carrying, since they really belong to others.
Letting go of past hurts that are tiny in comparison with how much energy we’ve spent lugging them around.
Letting go of sins that have already been forgiven.
Letting go of worries about the future that will probably never happen.
Letting go of concerns about our kids.
Letting go of the clothes in our closets we never wear and boxes of stuff in our garages we never use.
We all do it and we all need to stop. Really. We need to stop. The weight of it all is wearing us down.
The biggest problem, though, is our self-importance and our lack of trust, which are just two sides of the same coin. We think we’re too essential to let some things go. And we don’t trust God or others to take care of things we are afraid of falling apart without our involvement.
How do little things become heavy things? By not letting them go.
Runners are obsessive about the weight of their shoes and bicyclists about the weight of their bikes. They pay good money to shed mere ounces of weight, knowing that every bit of extra weight they have to lug with them will add up to exhaustion down the road. Time and distance will turn insignificant weights into exhausting weights.
So, what weight are you carrying around that you need to let go of?