I am again at an airport, and I can’t miss an interesting change that has been occurring recently: small carry-on bags and computer cases are being replaced by backpacks. It is surprising to see how backpacks have taken over. And it’s not like backpacks have just been invented, but they became the trendy way to travel. That’s all you see at the Starbucks line.
A couple of weeks ago Liz and I watched a movie called “Up in the Air” (2009), where George Clooney plays a business man who spends most of his life travelling around the country. He seems to enjoy the fact that it prevents him from having any meaningful, long lasting relationships.
He even has a side job as a “motivational” speaker with a presentation titled: “What’s in your backpack?”, where he discusses the weight we all carry around in our lives because the stuff we have.
In the speech he starts talking about possessions and proceeds to question the people in our lives, labeling them as the heaviest thing we carry around, preventing us from being free and fast.
It doesn’t take too long for him to figure out how empty his life is, but I am not going to spoil the ending, in case you want to watch it.
Curiously when I was driving to the airport I was listening to the Moody Radio and Pastor Erwin Lutzer was also talking about unnecessary weight we carry in our backpacks.
Obviously he was not recommending we get rid of the people in our lives, like the character in the movie, but the basic idea was there: free yourself up from unnecessary weight, and you will be able to run.
His perspective was based on the book of Hebrews, chapter 12 verses 1 & 2:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith”
So, what is the weight that you are carrying that shouldn’t be there? Is it guilt? Unforgiveness? Unconfessed sin? Greed?
What about dealing with it, so you can run?
What’s in your backpack?
