Dealing with Your Baggage

Not long ago Nancy and I were standing in line at the airport checking in our bags. So was everyone else getting ready to fly. It made me think that every one of us brings to our adult years some “baggage”.  But like the psalmist who penned Ps.119, God can “check our bags” and bring into our lives great balance as we simply trust His Word every day.   This is what we see as we come to verses 161-168.

For example, in verse 163 it says, “I hate and abhor lying: but Thy Law do I love.”   Hate and love are the balancing act here. Picking up the intensity of the emotion with the word abhor, it’s aptly translated bringing out the very force of the verb, intensive !!!  Could it be akin to how most people feel about liver and onions? Anyhow, he gets the point across that he’s become thoroughly disgusted with deceit just as we are when we grow in the Lord.  Its why Congress’ approval rating stinks, people don’t like being lied to.  But a believer who loves the Lord has a holy hatred of that which is deceptive, and rightly so, yet on the flip side (and this is the result of righteous indignation), he LOVES God’s Word !   We’re born with the opposite “baggage”, we don’t naturally gravitate toward truth, being sinners.  But when we’re born again, we start to become more desirous of it and we begin to find we despise those ideas and practices against the Scriptures.  One good sign you are truly growing in your faith is just this, that you develop more of an aversion to evil and affection for good.  The Bible is KEY, as they say: it keeps you from sin and sin keeps you from it !

Also, note one other “balancing act” which deals with our baggage:  “Lord, I have hoped for Thy salvation, and done Thy Commandments.” (vs.166).  What is described here is the balance of waiting and walking.  The writer is already a believer and secure in that but the possibilities that remain are the ultimate realization of this and/or a deliverance of some sort in his life which is in keeping with this section as he speaks of  “princes have persecuted me without a cause” (vs.161a). I see it this way and keep in mind that salvation as a term in the Bible does not always speak of one’s conversion or else “work out your own salvation” (Phil.2:12) would teach our effort is needed to save ourselves.

Waiting on the Lord can be a challenege for us, we struggle with wanting what we want and wanting it now !  If we have been used to getting our way, waiting on God is actually a good thing that will balance us out well and deal effectively with that baggage.  Its why sometimes He doesn’t always answer at our “beck and call” !   So what does our writer do? He PROCEEDS to wait but that isn’t all he does, He CONTINUES to walk (meaning he just keeps doing what God has told him to do in His Word).    How tempting it is to think that because God doesn’t respond, I won’t !  But how glorifying it is to the Lord when you keep walking and waiting. Think how that looks to those around you when you do – they see your trust, they see your love for Him no matter what and that steadiness is spiritually attractive !    You may be used to getting your way, to micromanaging things, as so many in our nation are, why not let God check that “suitcase” and balance you out for His glory !!