You should have seen the back of our Excursion on our trip to South Carolina. You would have thought we were moving back! We didn’t know whether the weather would be hot or cold, and we didn’t know whether or not we would be able to do some laundry while we were there, so we packed heavily and were over prepared. The problem came when we would stop. At every hotel or resting place, we had to unpack and later repack, and we didn’t all stay at the same place from one night to the next, so all of our luggage was in a near-constant shuffle. Naturally, whenever we dropped off a child to stay with a friend for the night, his or her luggage would be hidden under everything else, so it seemed like we would unpack it all at each stop.

We do that with our sin and guilt. God has told us to leave it behind, yet we carry it around with us, and it gets in our way and slows us down. We shift it from one spot to another, unload it only to reload it, then carry it around another day. We don’t reach our potential for Christ because we act like we have to carry this extra weight around with us. We do not need to carry the guilt. Yes, I know that we were sinners. Yes, I also know that even though we became Christians, we still have had sin in our lives. But our Father loves us so much more than we know, and we can go to Him and He will remove the sin that creates barriers between us and Him.