Recently, I read about a man who decided to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. To prepare for this 2610-mile journey from Georgia to Maine, he gathered everything that he thought he would need. His backpack bulged with an audio player for bird calls, a camera, an alarm clock, a radio, and much more. He was prepared for anything.
At his first stop, an experienced hiker pulled him aside and suggested that he might be overloaded. To help him out, the experienced hiker took everything out of the backpack, held each item up, and asked, “Is this worth it? Do you want to carry this for the next 2,000 miles?" No item, in and of itself, was that heavy. However, the combined weight and the distance that it had to be hauled, would have made the entire trek a struggle and maybe impossible to complete. In the end, the man sent home 26 pounds of unnecessary gear.
As I thought about that incident, I realized that “Is it worth it? Do you want to keep carrying this?” is a great question for life.
Too often, we end up carrying things that weigh us down and make life miserable. Thoughts of anger, fear, guilt, worry, or regret cause us to re-live painful incidents from the past, or imagine some catastrophe in the future. Eventually, the weight of those emotions becomes too much, and we end up losing hope and joy. We must guard our thinking. As Psalm 14:30 reminds us, “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones”.
What do you need to put down? What do you need to stop dwelling on? What are you thinking about or imagining that is not serving you well?
I know that life is not easy. Sometimes we cause our own trouble and other times we get caught in the wake of the bad decisions that others have made. However, we always get to choose how we see our circumstances. We can decide to focus on freedom and happiness.
In fact, that is God’s offer to everyone.
As Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32)
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