Dropping Your Backpack & The Messy Middle

 


As I travel through the northeastern states with my daughter creating memories while revisiting important sacred spaces from my journey it feels like years of accumulated stress from pastoring have evaporated like water in the desert! As a result, my commitment to live a life that fully embraces the messy middle in both my public & private life has exponentially increased. 


Throughout this journey we have generally spent 1 to 3 days in Residence Inns at various locations where we have taken day trips to the places on our itinerary of discovery. As we have loaded & unloaded the car each day, I started to notice that my daughter had one backpack that never seemed to be opened once in the room. About four days into our trip I asked her if she truly needed that bag, only to discover that it doesn’t contain a single item required for life on this trip. However, it does include a list of items that she didn’t think she could leave behind.


What does this have to do with life in the messy middle? I am glad you asked because I have come to realize that this annoyingly heavy backpack represents the baggage we carry that prevents us from embracing the life Jesus calls His followers to live. For example, the backpack I carried for years was built on being afraid that my fellow Christian’s wouldn’t accept or like me. My flawed theology prevented me from loving ALL people unconditionally. This baggage caused me to believe that my job as a Christian, especially as a pastor, was to fight some culture war that further oppressed & dehumanized the marginalized.


Then on one of our recent stops something magical occurred when my daughter realized she didn’t need to lug the backpack around anymore so decided to choose freedom by leaving it in the car. The same thing happened for me once I decided to stop allowing fear of man to shape my theology. Shedding that baggage allowed me to fully love, embrace, and accept those who we have placed on the margins. My life is now filled with the joy found in deep connections to friends of different ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic groups, LGBTQ+, and even different religions. 


Friends, let the Holy Spirit do their job while you move to this beautiful grace filled messy middle space where deep friendships along with true freedom in Jesus is found!


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