How i Met your Baggage

My amazing wife and i are watching one of my favorite shows of all time, How I Met Your Mother.
It is a really fun sitcom that usually has some morality thread through an episode. This last week we got to an episode that made me really disagree with their premise. Ted (the main character) is struggling to find a  woman who doesn't have baggage. Through the episode, he finds he also has a huge chunk of baggage, but lucky he meets a girl who will help him carry it. For a moment he seems happy, until she unloads all her baggage onto him. Now this baggage ranges from living with her brother, too many cat, hates star wars. Then there is his baggage which was being left at the alter.

My problem comes at the idea of having to share each other load of luggage for a relationship to work. The idea that we are forever weighed down by our past like a weight around our necks and if someone is ever planning on loving us they have to help carry the weight. I know i am blessed in a relationship where i feel we don't have much baggage but really the weight of our past isnt what drives my amazing wife and I. I had a hard time connecting to this episode and i think i know why.

WE ALL SUCK! We all have something in our past that has changed us in a negative way (our baggage). The glory i have found is that i have a personal bell hop. I companion who is always ready to take my luggage to my next stop so i can enjoy my life's adventure unencumbered. !Spoiler Alert! it's Jesus. That is the easy short answer and now all your problems are solved, please don't forget to tip your waitress...

If only it was that easy. Our baggage weighs us down going into knew relationships every time we meet someone. Fear about what they will think, intimidation at the thought of their judgment, and even hatred of those who appear to not carry any burden at all. These personal hesitations have NOTHING to do with the other person! They are actually just what we see when we think about ourselves weighed down by our past. Others see you as God sees you, in this moment, imperfect in your perfection.

We must see ourselves as God sees us, and in doing so find peace. In that peace find the true feather weight of our personal baggage, that we are not doomed to be burdened with it because God has called us to focus on his mission for us. That calling in our hearts that makes us whole without the need for adulation That mission is always forward and never back! Eyes focused on the world God asks us to create everyday filled with hope, joy, and love.

Paul tells us his realization in his letter to the Philippians 3:  Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead. Have you strained to move on from your past? Have you let go of that luggage and let the Grace of Christ bare the load? When you do you can Press toward the goal God has called you to in Christ.

The only person holding your baggage is YOU. So i pray for you, that you may let go of those things that hold you back from being the brilliant being of light you are. 

So here i stand, on the wrong side of the Cross telling you that you are a Luminous being, not this fleshy crude matter. I ask you to drop those things that hold you back! Your fear, sorrow, and pain is exactly that, Yours. It may have helped shape you, but you can never let it define you! 

 “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”