What’s in Your Backpack?

I once packed a bag far too heavy and it was miserable to carry. Every summer as a teen our youth group took a week-long back-packing trip through the Colorado mountains. This yearly trip was one I anticipated for months on end. What I didn’t foresee was the learning curve involved. Eventually I became a seasoned hiker, but my first summer was a painful experience in discovering how NOT to pack your bag. Even though I was given a special internal frame pack designed to make hikes lighter, it still was not designed to carry everything I owned plus the kitchen sink. That first trip I packed more weight on my back than I could manage alone. All the things I thought so essential suddenly became unbearable burdens. Many things in life just are not meant to be carried—or be shouldered alone. 

So what’s in your backpack?

What do you carry hoping it will help navigate you through life? Self-reliance, pride, a big paycheck, reputation, or home? Or perhaps it’s stability, security, comfort? The list of things we turn to other than God are endless. We carry them thinking they will improve life when in reality, eventually, they become too much, too heavy, too burdensome. We don’t like to admit it, but we all have idols tucked away in the backpacks we carry.  

So did God’s people.

In Babylon captivity, God’s people learned this painful lesson that carrying idols was dead weight. God’s people were in captivity because of their stubborn rebellion against the Lord and idol worship. These people had painstakingly carved wooden images into idols intended to save them from trouble. When trouble hit however, instead of these idols shouldering the burden for the people, the people shouldered their idols straight into captivity. These idols were meant to save but were burdens too heavy to carry. They were absolutely worthless to save. 

So how did God handle this situation?

God beckoned His people to listen. He reminded them that it was He who had made them, He who had carried them before they were even born. God reminded His people that as He carried in the past, He would carry in the present, even into the future when the hairs on their head turned grey. God would not just carry—God would save. 

“Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.”—Isaiah 46:3-4

This week, as I unpacked my own heavy back-pack, I realized I am far too easily reliant upon my own self. Self-sufficiency is my middle name, my “mojo”. I work harder, run faster, strive for efficiency. After all, “hard-work makes the dream work” right? If I just work hard enough, my children will be more obedient, love the Lord, and turn out as responsible, functional adults. If I work hard enough then my marriage will be trouble-free and my home that white-picket fence dream the child version of me longed for long ago. Yet these are all works reliant upon what I manufacture, and if I’m honest with myself, no matter how hard I “work” at being a good mom, wife, friend, student or anything else, my efforts will fall short. What I’ll discover at the end of all that hard work is frustration, disappointment, and most likely burn-out. I’m human. I’m not a vat of bottomless strength. I’m not God. I NEED God. On my own, I tire easily and cry often. The Lord—He knows this. He knows that in and of myself I am weak. But God—God is strong. He longs for us to look to Him, to cast our burdens upon Him, to allow Him to carry us through this life that is often too heavy of a journey to fly solo on. To cast our burden upon the Lord means we don’t just empty out the backpack. We take it off completely. Then we cast it upon Him. All the worries, all the vain efforts and false securities—we give it all over to God. In return, God promises to carry us. God reminds us that we will not achieve rest or stand on our own—only in God will we find rest for our souls. 

I needed this gentle but stern reminder this week. I needed to look up out of the chaos of my own life and do a little un-packing. I needed to see more of God and less of me and my mess. I needed the reminder that I don’t need to be the one doing the carrying. God carries me.