Spiritual Burden

A Few Minutes with God

What is a spiritual burden, and is this baggage, and does this pertain to you? I found that we all carry some baggage, and in this show, we will discuss ways to lessen the load.

Spiritual Baggage Episode 306

What is spiritual baggage? Or should it be called spiritual burden? I heard a great analogy of this the other day, and it was related to backpacking in the wilderness. When roughing it, it is important to take the essential items the things (such as food and water) that you can not live without, but in doing so, you end up weighing down your bag. The more you add to your backpack, the more you have to carry, and after a while, it is so heavy it will become a burden or slow you down. This is the same with our spiritual burdens. These are the things that weigh us down and stifle our growth and relationship with the Lord. It affects our emotions,

It affects our emotions psychologically, our relationships, and our well-being. Not only are we struggling to carry this weight every day, but often, the baggage spills over onto others. There are all types of spiritual and emotional baggage, and this can be summed up in our emotional well-being. Are we hurt, frustrated, traumatized, or has our faith been damaged in some way? Often, when we struggle with trauma, we can become bogged down in grief, anger, or sadness. Daily we struggle with not getting enough done or accomplishing all we hoped, and then we are upset with ourselves or others.

If you’ve listened to this show, you know I encourage spending time with God. When I don’t, I feel like I let the Lord down, and my spiritual growth is inching along instead of leaping ahead. Many times, we struggle with unrealized goals or how we think things should turn out instead of actual circumstances.

Baggage can also be things of the past, fighting past sins or grievances. Perhaps we still struggle to forgive someone who has hurt us, or we are carrying the pain from past relationships. Something could trigger a past response or remind us of something in the past, and we react badly. Then, of course, that spirals into guilt.

I believe the worst baggage is the unidentified ones that are in our subconscious, but we don’t realize or just don’t acknowledge. This can affect our everyday interactions with our family and those around us. It keeps us in bondage, and that, my friends, is something we must rebuke.

Baggage slows us down and can keep us from living a life that is filled with love, laughter, and the knowledge that our lives center around our faith in God.

What should we do? Daily, we should put on the whole armor of God to combat the schemes of the evil one, as Scripture states! Read Ephesians 6

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (Read on air.)

Our spiritual baggage is not won by anything we can physically do on our own – as the scripture states, “for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” Strongholds are areas in our lives that we give over to the evil one!

I love Matthew 11:28-30. (Read on air.)

It gives us all so much hope! We are laboring and carrying a burden we don’t have to and that God never wanted us to carry. It is something that we have to release on a daily basis. I often pray, “Lord, I give you my worries, my needs, and all of the things I can not control in my life. Please, Lord, take this burden from me and allow me to rest in the knowledge that you are there for me, always.” Write your own prayer and focus on the words, allowing your burden to lighten. If you can’t think of anything, ask the Holy Spirit to help you.

We can overcome our struggles with anything by first acknowledging there is a problem. This is step one in any addiction program: recognizing you have an addiction first so that you can overcome it instead of being in denial and thinking it is not a problem. We can not overcome something we do not acknowledge.

Overcoming Spiritual Baggage

1. Spend time in prayer, asking the Lord to reveal burdened areas of your life and write them down.
2. Acknowledge these burdens with the hope that the Lord will lift them from you!
3. Pray. Ask someone to pray with you, visit your priest or clergy, and ask for help. If you have a prayer partner, ask them to pray as you discern ways to deal with the issues at hand.
4. Acknowledge anyone you need to forgive. Forgiving is a decision, not a feeling (Podcast on forgiveness here), and asking for forgiveness here.
5. Letting go and letting God is a form of releasing our stress and anxiety to Him and Him alone.
6. Asking the Lord into your heart in a deeper way and praying for God’s guidance and healing.
7. Surrendering all to the Lord. Daily.

Will you pray for me? I will pray for you that you can release your burdens to the Lord and enjoy life, because your burden will be light!

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