What are You Packing?

Have you heard the statement, “Everywhere you go, there you are.”? Basically, it is saying don’t expect circumstances to be different just because you change locations (jobs, spouses, etc.); you take your issues and attitudes with you everywhere you go. You live in a state of ‘Déjà vu’ and start to think the whole universe is against you because the same problems keep coming around thwarting your efforts at a better life. Every job is filled with employers and co-workers that are out to get you. Every man/woman with which you’ve ever been involved used and abused you. Every landlord you ever had demanded the rent no matter how bad things were going for you. Every time you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel you realize it is a train speeding toward you. The world just will not give you a break!  

I, myself, have proclaimed several times in the last few months, “Nothing is ever easy!” It’s human nature to want things to run our way, a smooth path with no speed bumps on the road to happiness. I’m here to reinforce the fact that there is no such road. Happiness is not a destination, there is not a road sign stating you’ve crossed over in the city limits of Happiness, population 120,000. The city of Happiness will not descend from the sky in a foggy cloud like the mystical village of Brigadoon. Even if it should, if you walked the streets of Happiness, you would find employers and coworkers out to get you because ‘everywhere you go, there you are.’

We take our selfishness, attitudes of entitlement, sin, angst and anger, our scars and battle wounds with us everywhere we go. Some wear them like badges for the entire world to see. Others may have them packed away but will quickly pull out the baggage to show you so you will know just how badly life has treated them. Others stuff them down inside their hearts till it is hardened and calloused with the burden. They may laugh and be frivolous on the outside but behind the façade, a wounded, damaged human lurks just waiting for the next assault. The mother of all roots, Bitterness, grows with wild abandon as a new layer of ‘victim’ coats their lives and they come out swinging.

That paints a bleak and dark picture, doesn’t it? Sadly, it is an accurate description of the human condition without Christ. We see the world and all its evil as a mountain in our way on the road to Happiness.

However, with Christ… For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he says [Mk 11:23, Matt 21:21, Matt 17:20, Lk 17:6].

But You, O Sovereign LORD, deal well with me for Your name’s sake; out of the goodness of Your love, deliver me. For I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me.
Psalm 109:21,22

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written...Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." (Romans 8:35-37)

"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me....Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation" Psalms 51:10;12)

"Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13-14)

"Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2)

So, if everywhere you go, there you are…what are you packing to take with you? We get to choose, you know. As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord…not negative humanity.