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The Baggage Series, Part 1
Baggage Check, 11-14-10
As you may or may not know, I’ve done a fair bit of traveling over the years. In fact, over the past month, I’ve traveled to three very different parts of the country.
-The problem is that I really don’t enjoy it any more! Now, don’t get me wrong… I enjoy the people and churches I’m connecting with…
-I just don’t like the “getting there” part. Truth is, because of our years living overseas, the travel bug has long left me…
-So much so that driving to the airport is a little like those old tribal movies where the guy is tied up and carried to the rim of some volcano where he’s about to be sacrificed to some evil god.
Well, for me… the airport is the volcano. And yet… people still try and encourage me to simply enjoy the journey...
-That I should appreciate the “getting there” and not just the “being there.” Enjoy the rest, read a book, take a nap.
-Let me ask you… in fact, raise your hands… How many of you are, “Its all about the destination” kind of people?
-How many think it’s all about the journey? How many of you are not gonna raise your hand no matter what I ask?!
-Baggage… boy have you got baggage! Just letting you know.
Now, to be perfectly honest, its not that I’m not a “stop-n-smell the roses” kind of guy.
-If I’m driving through the Shenandoah Valley or through the Grand Tetons… than man, I’m gonna take in every moment.
-But when it comes to being cooped up in an airplane for six hours, then there’s not a big chance you’ll find me all that excited.
-Just think about what they call the place you have wait in before they finally board you on your flight. They call it a terminal!
And when they call your zone to board, you’re so excited… until you’re finally seated and it hits you… ok, now I’m waiting again.
-Its like a doctor’s office where you wait and wait… till they call out of the big waiting room into the little waiting room… so you can wait some more!
-But perhaps even worse than all the sitting around and waiting is what you’ve got to do before you even head out to the airport…
Packing! I hate to pack. In fact, because of how much we all hate waiting around for our baggage after a long flight…
-And, because of how much the airlines are charging now for checked baggage…
-There’s a trend now where people are doing anything and everything they can to pack five suitcases full of stuff in the two little carry-ons they let you take onto the plane with you.
-It’s gotten so crazy now that in almost every reasonably full flight I’ve traveled on over past few years,
-The overhead bins are packed out before the plane is even half full.
What’s so crazy about this is that, so often, people are breaking their backs walking through airports simply to avoid checking in their bags.
-So, they stuff as much as they can on a few carry-ons and go through the frustrating process…
-of lugging more than you can carry through the tiny magazine shops and long hallways.
-And we do all that because it seems easier to be in control of a few overstuffed bags than to take the time (and maybe even some expense) on the front end to check your bags at the gate.
The reality is that all of us have some baggage that we don’t want to check in… baggage we’d rather not have to claim.
-Rather than do the front-end work of checking in our baggage, we go through every available hoopto carry our stuff with us onto the plane.
-And yet, the sad thing is that what we’re doing… in carry all that baggage around with us each and every day… is actually, so much more difficult in the end.
-To one degree or another, we all do this… because in one way or another, we all have baggage.
-You see, there’s something, somewhere in our lives, where something happened…
And when it first happened, we may not have even paid all that much attention to it… “I mean, it hurt, it was a bad deal, but I can manage it…
-In spite of what happened, I can keep going...”
-And, in a way, you can… except you end up moving along like the person who refused to check-in their baggage…
-having to now deal with the extra weight you’re carrying around with you. Problem is that life doesn’t just leave you alone after that.
Next thing you know, something else happens… and then something else happens… and we begin carrying all of that around as well.
-And every now and then, we stop long enough to recognize the weight of all we’re carrying and we realize that the journey just isn’t all that fun.
-It’s not that the destination is bad or that the trip we happen to be on is bad… it’s just that weight we’re carrying around is getting heavier and heavier.
So, where does this all come from? How did we end up with this baggage in the first place?
-Let me share just five things as we get started as we consider where so much of our baggage comes from.
-And as I share this, I’d like you to keep this question running in the back of your mind…
What issue in your life are you traveling with that you just know you should’ve checked in long ago…
-and I’m not talking about your husband (he’s supposed to stay with you)!
-What issue in your life are you carrying around with that you know just shouldn’t be a part of your trip… and what would you have to do to let go of that.
So, let’s go ahead and claim the baggage first… let’s look at five areas that, broadly speaking, represent the source of not all… but, a lot of our baggage.
-The first would be unfulfilled expectations. “I thought it was gonna be this way, but it turned out that way.”
-So much of our anger comes from this place of unfulfilled expectations…
-Expectations of how you should have been treated orwhat you should have received from those whom you trusted, for example.
If you’ve grown up in a home that rarely offered you any affirmation or approval… from all the unfilled expectations of what should’ve been,
-you may be carrying around the baggage of inferiority… an inner, nagging sense that you’re no good… that you’ll never amount to anything… that no one could possibly love you.
-Of course, you’re following Jesus now… but still, on some level, you see yourself and unlovely.
As much as you might recognize God’s love and grace, the reality of that hasn’t moved beyond the intellect into the deepest parts of who you are.
-And so, while your mind may celebrate His love and forgiveness, your heart may be crying out…
-“You can’t trust His love… He couldn’t possibly love you like that.”
-And, without ever checking that bag in… without the deep feelings of inferiority being slowly overtaken by His perfect love…
Over time, we’ll just loose hope that it ever can, which just adds more weight to excess baggage we’re already carrying.
-In fact, Solomon writes inProverbs 13:12… “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”
-There may be a lot of people in this room who are experiencing the reality of that right now…
-Where the heaviness of your heart over unfulfilled expectations is weighing you down and making your heart sick.
Ok… let me move on to the second baggage we often face in life… another carry-on that shouldn’t have to be part of our trip…
-And that is untreated pain... pain that we often learn to cover up with just a smile. “How are you, doing? “Fine.” But… we’re not.
-Some of us have gotten pretty good at this… where we turn pain & image management into an art form.
It was no big deal.” But it was a big deal. “I can deal with it.” You can… sort of. And yet, its added a lot of extra weight to your load.
-And by doing this, we let whatever may have happened come and go without giving it the attention it needed.
-You see, there’s a difference between learning to cope and being ready to heal.
Jeremiah prophesied in Jeremiah 6:14, that there would be a generation of people who would “dress the wounds of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace.’ They say, when there is no peace.”
-“You’ll be ok… be at peace!” But there is no peace. “I’m not ok.”
-And yet, as I’ve said, some of you have really learned the art of hiding the pain away. “Yeh, it hurt, but life’s just like that…”
-And while this isn’t aways true… guys… you’re probably a little better at this than the women sitting around you.
Just last week, Ophrah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, both of whom suffered ongoing childhood sexual abuse as children,
-Invited 200 men who, after many years of hiding, had decided to finally come out of hiding.
-All of them suffered from sexual abuse as children… and all of them had been hiding from it for all these years.
-But let me tell you something… there is simply no way to bury the pain that comes with abuse like that.
-You can try to bury it deep inside yourself but it will only reappear in some disguised form.
You see, when you bury trauma and pain like this, those feelings will one way or another manifest into other issues.
-Some survivors begin to feel depressed, suicidal or numb. Others may act out and have promiscuous sex, drink alcohol, or struggle with rage.
-80% of those 200 men on Oprah said they had contemplated suicide. 33% actually made the desperate attempt.
-When you feel no safety in the world, somehow suicide seems like a safe alternative.
That’s how it was for Tyler Perry who slit his wrists when he was 11 years old. On her show, Oprah shared these words that are worth repeating…
-"When abuse destroys the man, it destroys everything in their lives, including their relationships,"
-"Sexual abuse—I know this for sure—plants the seeds of inferiority and worthlessness, and then that inferiority and worthlessness shapes the way you start to think about yourself and the way you act and act out.”
-Does the church have a message for those who live with untreated pain? For those who’ve lost hope? With all of my heart, soul, and mind… I believe we do.
Ok… here’s athird culprit that so often leads to our baggage in life… An unresolved yesterday.
-Though it’s related to what I just shared, the real issue here is that we don’t deal with our pain and disappointments quickly enough.
-Let me give you a bit of sad news… but then followed by a really promising solution.
The sad news is that stuff is gonna happen to you.Jesus tells us straight out in John 16:33 that in this world, you’re gonna face trouble.
-But the lasting problem isn’t that hurtful stuff’s gonna come our way…
-The problem isn’t what people will say or do or the mistakes we make ourselves that are going to wound us.
-The real problem is that when these wounds appear in our lives, we don’t always deal with them.
And, before we know it, before we’ve dealt with the first thing, there’s something else, then something else…
-till we’re making our way through the airport lugging around way more than the two pieces of carry-ons the airlines allow.
-Some of us just have the baggage of delayed repair… an unresolved yesterday.
-In fact, let me show you, from Ephesians 4:26-27, the power of something not dealt with.
Paul writes, “In your anger, do not sin…” And here’s the secret to how you can keep that anger, which you’re gonna have, from taking root in your life.
-He says, “In your anger, do not sin; do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.”
-You see, the Bible presupposes that you’ll get angry... and yet, in our anger, we’re challenged to resolve it quickly.
-Because if you don’t… then, as Paul continues to write here, you’ll end up giving the devil a foothold in your life…
Not because of the event that caused you to get angry… but because we never fully resolved the effects of what happened.
-By not dealing with the hurt or disappointment or anger fast enough, we allow it to take root in our lives.
-So, Paul writes, “Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.”
I honestly wish I could tell you that I’ve always done this… that, when something hurts or upsets me…
-that I automatically hit the pause button in life in order to resolve what just happened.
-Truth is, when it comes to conflict, my desire is to always run to it, in terms of bringing resolution, rather than run from it.
But I don’t always do that. And, as a result, not always, of course, but, at times, I can allow it to brew inside of me…
-Allowing it to shake my confidence and my calling, for example.
-When it comes to conflict in our marriage… I wish I can say that Joyce and I never let the sun go down on our anger… but, at times, we do.
-When we have an argument, for example, Joyce likes to process things. She doesn’t want to argue…she wants to process…
So that, the next day, for example, she’s able to resolve it. That’s a reasonable approach…
-and yet, its something I had to work hard to come to grips with.
-Fully committed to working things out, Joyce will just look at me and say, “let’s just talk about it in the morning!”
-And then, to my total frustration, that girl has no problem going right to sleep…
-While I’m left there hurt or angry... up half the night!
So, in our marriage, I’ve had to learn (am continuing to learn) how to not only give Joyce the time she needs to process…
-But how, in the meantime, I can find resolution within my own heart before we find resolution together as a couple.
-Because if I don’t, there’s little doubt that I’m leaving the door ajar for satan to come and really mess things up.
For some of you, this whole process of not letting to sun go down on your anger is something you do real well with.
-Even when you’ve been hurt, you’re able to sleep good that night because you know that, at the end of the day,
-When someone hurts you, it’s typically not about you. It’s that hurting people hurt people…
-and that person who said that about you is hurting… and that you’ve just been caught in the cross-fire.
And yet, I have to be so much more intentional about this because of some very specific emotional baggage I’ve not fully checked in.
-Most of it, I think… but not all of it. My parents have been married for almost 60 years… but its not always been easy road for them.
-When I was around ten years of age, for example, talk of divorce was something that was always present in my house.
-And so, after every fight, I couldn’t help but wonder if that would be the one fight that ends their marriage.
Truth is, I remember the one that did lead to their getting separated, a separation that, thankfully, lasted less than a few years.
-And even though I was the youngest of four kids… with three older sisters… I was the one always trying to stick my finger in the dam…
-Always trying to keep the water from busting through.
-I share that because that’s where the cliché’d “fear of abandonment” came from in my life.
You see, it’s this particular baggage that I was carrying around that made it so hard, when we first got married, to give Joyce the time she needed to process.
-Personally, I’d rather fight it out… have a good debate. But that was a path that would never get me to my desired destination!
-Of course, it wasn’t my commitment to Ephesians 4:26, but rather my insecurities, would drive me to get things resolved as soon as possible.
-But with God’s help and healing, there’s maybe a toiletry sized bag left unchecked rather than the trunks I hadbeen lugging through the airports.
The fourth culprit that can often lead to baggage is an unhealthy view of who we are… and unhealthy view of self.
-And, of course, this can hit us from so many different directions in life. Perhaps some of you were raised in a great family where you always received a lot of affirmation and love.
-And yet, in spite of all the affirmation you may have gotten from your mom or dad, maybe your friends didn’t always see things the same way.
And, unfortunately, as a teenager, what they thought was far more important than what your parents thought.
-Maybe you saw yourself as a warm, loving person… and yet, as you reached out for love and approval and affection…