Sometimes we may disguise our bag...it may seem pretty on the outside.
Sometimes we say, "To heck with pretending."
But guess what...we each have our own bag. And each bag holds rocks.
Some are big rocks...
Some are a bit smaller...
The point is, we all have a bag, and we all carry some rocks around. Rocks can be anything--stress, worry, fear, heart ache, illness, guilt, trials, just name it, it's a rock.
Well, here's a news flash for everyone. None of us should ever feel responsible for carrying someone else's bag. It's not my problem; it's not your problem. You've got your own bag. And believe me, I know how heavy they can get sometimes.
I can't carry your bag. If I try to carry your bag, it will just way me down. And it will continue to way me down until there's nothing left of me. It will dig into my shoulders, make my feet hurt, discourage me, suck the life and energy out of me, and possibly even kill me, whether physically or even spiritually.
Some of us like to try to hand our bag to others. In fact, I'm sure we've all done this on occasion. We don't want to carry it anymore. And who can blame us? We're tired and weak and we just want to get rid of it. So we try to give it to the closest victim. Often, we give it to a close friend, someone who cares and will mistake the act of helping and supporting for taking our bag from us. There's a difference between helping/supporting someone and carrying a person's bag. Friends are there to walk beside us, to encourage, to tell us that we can either carry the bag, get rid of some of the rocks, or most importantly, they can and hopefully will steer us to the one person who can lighten our load and help carry our bag.
Guess who that one person is. Guess who can lighten the load, take some rocks out, even carry your bag. Can you guess? That's right, Jesus Christ.
I've carried people's bags before. It didn't work. I learned that the hard way. In fact, I'm still learning from past experiences of trying to carry other people's bags. I'm still experiencing some lingering pain, even after handing back their bag.
You can't carry my bag. I can't carry yours. I will no longer try to carry anyone's bag for them. It does a disservice to them, and it does a disservice to me.
I will point them to the source of comfort and relief. And hopefully, others will do the same for me when I'm just too tired and can't hold it anymore.
We all have a bag. Let's allow Jesus Christ to help us with them.
