Weight Of Glory

We are all carrying weight around.  The question, then, is what kind of weight do you want to be carrying with you through this life?

At our church's high school group, Catalyst, we've been talking about the burdens that we carry.  Pain, shame, anger, bitterness... these barely scratch the surface of what we walk around with... what we CHOOSE to walk around with.  Yes, this is a choice.  It is true that we cannot control the circumstances around us or the things that happen to us.  Yet, we can choose what we do with them!  Many of us hold on to these things, cling to them even, because in some weird way they have become a part of who we are... a part of our identity.  Many of us are afraid to let go of these things for fear that we will no longer have an identity; that having this negativity in us telling us who we are is better than our souls being void and our identity unknown.  Or, we just don't want to go there.  We don't want to deal with it (whatever "it" is for you).  Time doesn't heal wounds.  With time, wounds untreated only get infected and spread to the rest of our bodies!  Only the proper care and treatment can bring healing.

Here's the good news, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ and He has come to take residence in your soul then He has completely replaced the death that was once at the core of who you are with LIFE.  Now think of this Life (or Light) covered up by all these layers.  This Light is trying to get out.  The only way this happens is if we let it.  We can keep this Light hidden away never to be seen or allow this Light to permeate every layer of who we are on it's way to the surface.  With this permeation it slowly transforms every dead cell to a living one.  So you will never be without an identity, but will receive the truth of who you are cell by cell, layer by layer, until you are brought to completion... brought to full Life. 

Allowing this permeation is not easy.  BUT we don't need to do the work.  We just need to choose in to it and trust the Holy Spirit along the journey.  The trusting is the hard part because He will undoubtedly lead us through the journey of our past... the journey of our pain.  He doesn't erase the past or our memories, but rather changes them to include Him, to include truth.  All of those layers in us are the same (our will, heart and spirit, our emotions, our mind, our bodies), but it's our choice on what we burden those layers with... the weight of sin or of pain, or the weight of glory... His glory and freedom, Life and Light.

Our Catalyst group decided it was time to let go of some of the weight that was not good.  We chose in to the journey that Holy Spirit is leading us down... to eventually only have His weight to bear.  We wrote different things on rocks to throw in to the river as a symbol of our letting go.

Freedom.  Weight of glory.