Jubilee For The Soul (#42)

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This is my personal “Year of Jubilee.” The concept comes from Leviticus 25, where the children of Israel are instructed to make every 50th year a Year of Jubilee. A hallmark of the biblical Year of Jubilee is a returning of things to their rightful owner. Land which may have been sold reverted to it’s original owner. Indentured servants who had to sell themselves as laborers to repay debts were freed. In this holy redemption year even the land was allowed to rest.

I turned 49 in September and therefore I am in the midst of my 50th year now, my Year of Jubilee. While scripture does not discuss a personal Jubilee, I have thought a lot about it this year and what the principle of Jubilee symbolizes. I think about what it means to rest, to let go of things you love and didn’t want to live without, and to examine the rightful owner of things in my life. I will share more about my Year of Jubilee later; today I want to talk about the way this relates to baggage.

I have shared before my analogy that we are all born with a bag (See blog post #36). The bag is ours alone to carry.  It can be light, or it can be heavy depending on what we put inside and how long we carry it around. As we go through life, we make mistakes and also get caught up in the mistakes (sins) of other people. We get angry, sad, hurt, wounded, or worse…and we pack our regrets (see blog post # 39), experiences and feelings (such as wounds, anger, resentment, jealousy, and righteous indignation) in our bag. Some baggage is even our white-knuckled attempt to hold on to wounds for fear that letting go may somehow invalidate our pain.

And we often carry around contents that were never intended to be in our bag, contents which are not ours to own or carry. This is the baggage that needs to be returned to its rightful owner. This is not something most of us know intuitively how to do. We need help and compassion as we learn how to open our bags and do business with God over the stuff we’ve accumulated. While at times difficult, I found this to be an extremely liberating experience.

To that end, I would like to invite you to join me in person for an event where you will meet with God and do business with Him. You will learn what is and what is not your baggage to carry. You will be given the tools to walk away lighter and free, finally. You can learn more about the Finally Free Forgiveness Retreat taking place July 15-16, 2022, by visiting our sister website at OneTen Ministries. (Note: An online version of this powerful training is also in development. Stay tuned for future details.)

Give your soul a Jubilee, a time of returning your baggage to its rightful owner.

Enough Baggage (#36)

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Do you have baggage? We all do.

It’s like we are each born with an empty suitcase. All through life we accumulate stuff that we store in our suitcase. This stuff is not trinkets and treasures, clothes or souvenirs.  Oh no, we pack our suitcase with our mistakes, shame, lies, and fears. All the stuff we don’t want anyone else to see.

Every bad or sad or hurtful thing we’ve done or thought. Every good or kind or helpful thing we haven’t done that we should have. We just keep packing and the bag keeps getting heavier.

And life goes on, everyone with their suitcase. We even can start to think it’s OK to have this baggage.  After all, everyone has a suitcase.

We try to dress up our suitcase with decorations and scented sachet’s. We can try to make it pretty, or trendy, or even try camouflage. We can try to hide the stench of what’s inside. But our baggage is there, getting heavier all the time. We continue through life packing our shame, failures, guilt, and pain inside. All the while hoping no one notices or sees what’s inside. Yet we know.

Sometimes the bag gets heavy, clumsy, or awkward to carry…still we keep packing it, all the while cleverly finding ways to hide the contents from everyone else. Once in a while, if we’re really brave, we show some of the contents to special people we trust, like our spouse or our very best friends. Sometimes they are shocked. Sometimes they cry with us. Sometimes they get mad. Sometimes they scold us. Sometimes they try to help. Sometimes we learn people are unsafe.

And sometimes they can help. A little. They can encourage us when our bag is heavy and the hill ahead seems long and far too steep. Yet the truth of the matter remains: no matter how much they want to help, all of the contents still belong to us.

One of the things in life that weigh us down – emotionally, mentally, and yes, even physically – is that we carry around baggage that actually isn’t even ours. We will explore this in future posts. Carrying around that which isn’t ours to carry adds needless weight to our journey.

This category will explore how we can evaluate our suitcase, unpack it, and lighten our load…for good!

So, what’s in your suitcase?