Day 20 -- Samsonite: You gotta let it go...

When we journey in community and really begin to work the warp and woof of love, forgiveness, and the lack of these things in our relationships...the cracks begin to show. Our relationships aren't that great. What's more, the amount of baggage that we're all carrying around...the hurts and wounds we are actively "nursing" against one another are simply huge. Resentment, hurt, anger, unforgiveness...all universally human responses to injustices received (real or perceived).

Truth is, we get really attached to our luggage. After awhile we've hauled it around long enough we begin to think our emotional luggage is essential to life...full of the things that we need for daily living. The reality? It's just another 50 extra pounds of weight making it harder to move and maneuver through life, making our hearts work too hard, and bringing on the stress related illnesses associated with too much weight. Am I talking about being overweight or carrying too much luggage? Yes.

Because they are kind of like the same thing.

The thing is, we weren't designed to carry around all that extra luggage. Jesus in his genius understood our propensity for luggage lugging and came to gift us with a way for unloading its power in our lives. The method? It's called forgiveness. In Greek, it means to simply let go. Let it all go.

Because of the ways in which our Samsonite becomes a family heir loom we come to believe we've got to hold onto at all costs, the real act of letting it go can seem well nigh impossible. I suggest some journaling and active visualization...exercises that allow us to diffuse the energy in herent in the luggage for us.

1. Unforgiveness always has a personal focal point. It's directed at somebody. Sitting down with a clean piece of paper, pen/pencil, and some time, and then unloading everything that you have to say to that person can be incredibly cathartic. Write until you don't have anything to write anymore. Get it all out. Say it all like you want to say it. Then read it out loud and listen to yourself in your unforgiveness. Hear it, feel it, and note the energy it's taking from your life. Then note something else. The issue at the core of the problem? It's you. The person you are angry at or hurt by isn't asking you to hold onto this. They aren't forcing you to keep this festering wound open and alive and infected. You are. Own this, sense it, and acknowledge it. Because it's yours, you have power of it. Then do yourself a favor. DO NOT send the letter to the person it is addressed to. Instead, in a a fire safe environment, burn the letter and give the energy and hurt and unforgiveness to God and ask him to deal with and heal the hurt in your heart. Burn the letter up, and as it burns, let the hurt go. You've had your say. It's your hurt. Release it, and move on.

If you are actively hurting over something, address it. Stop giving another ounce of energy to it. Unforgiveness takes actively nursed energy to maintain. It's exhausting. It steals life. And it never punishes the person it's intended for like we intend it for them. So give it up. Confront it, name it, own it, say/write what you need to say, and then burn the hurts up, releasing them to God.

When our hands are full of the past and the pain of the past, we are simply unable to reach out and hold the "present" that God has for us now and the future he's calling us into. Get your hands empty Saints. God needs you open and empty so that he can fill you with the stuff of life for the task of life, not the tasks of death.

Let it go.

Just let it go.

Praying a day of release for you all, in the name of Jesus Christ, the one who let our sin go that we might be filled with his life.

Pastor Nathan