Letting Go of Your Baggage – So You Can Have Peace

We all have intense struggles in life that can become baggage. Here is how to begin letting go of baggage so you can walk in God's perfect peace. #Biblestudy #1Samuel #WomensBibleStudy #GoodMorningGirls

Sorrow. Fear. Regret. Insecurity, Bitterness. Depression. Anger. Grief.

We all have seasons in life when we struggle with intense emotions.  Sometimes it comes from the death of a loved one or a struggle with a child, other times it’s from health issues, financial issues, wounds from someone we trusted or spiritual dryness.

Join me on this video as we look at our reading from 1 Samuel 6-10 and discuss Letting Go of Your Baggage – So You Can Have Peace.

{If you are reading this in an email or feed – click here to view the video}

When my daughter was little, she had a play kitchen with plastic food. She would serve me grapes and bananas and I would pretend to eat them.  Never did I mistake the plastic grapes and bananas as the real thing. Yet in our reading of 1 Samuel 8 – that is exactly what we see the people of Israel doing.  They demanded to have a king – just like the other nations – only they already had a King!  The King of Kings was their king, yet they begged for a man to be their king.

Oh I shake my head in bewilderment, wondering how Israel could get this so wrong – yet I’m reminded that in my own life – I often go to people with my burdens instead of God.  I see a human counselor – when I have the Wonderful Counselor, I can turn to every second of the day.

I’m thankful that God uses other people in our lives (I love my counselor) but may we never forget the transforming power of God and His Word.   There is no book or blog that can compare to the Words of our all wise and powerful God!

What God’s people did not know – as King Saul was announced as King of Israel – is that one day God would send a man – a God/Man – who would be their one true King – the King of all Kings!

Jesus.

What a precious name, the name of Jesus is.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

As we carry our backpacks filled with our burdens  – may we remember that we have a Heavenly Father who wants to carry our bags for us.

When we get onto an airplane, we have the choice to check our baggage or carry it on.  I hope today you will choose to check it – give it to Jesus – don’t carry it any longer.

**Chime In**

What’s weighing you down today?  

Instead of carrying it on in life – check your bags here in the comment section.  What do you need to let go of today?

Keep walking with the King,

Courtney

52 Comments

  1. What a wonderful video and post. I need to let go of my weight and food. I’ve gained so much over the past few years as I’ve gone through challenging times. I turned to food for comfort instead of God. I have a lot of hurt, disappointment, and maybe even some fear to let go of.

    1. May I hear you check out the blog Dashing Dish? She is a Christian and cookbook author who encourages women to live healthy lives. She incorporates Christ into everything on her website!

    2. I’m with you Jennifer. Same issues, same “comfort”, same result. It’s so frustrating that I have tried so many times to hand it to God, but pick it right back up. Truly a minute to minute struggle.

      1. Hey Anne, I want to share the same thing with you I did with Jennifer.
        Over the past year and half God has freed me from so much related to my health, weight and body image. As I surrendered this to Him He has made the difference. God used a book, a short, simple book, called F.I.T. Faith Inspured Transformation by Kim Dolan Leto to finally help me have progress and victory in this area. For the first time in over 20 years I feel good in my skin and am a healthier me. You can do it to, you can do it through His strength, you are worth it! You can find the book on Amazon and check Kim out at
        Kimdolanleto.com, you can find her on IG and FB too, there is a free accountability group called F.I.T. Sisters in Christ on FB. I am praying for you today Jennifer that you can have freedom abd healing. With much love and understanding sister, Rhonda

        Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. – Hebrews 12:1-2

    3. Hey Jennifer, Can I say, “Me too sister…”
      Over the past year and half God has freed me from so much related to my health, weight and body image. As I surrendered this to Him He has made the difference. God used a book, a short, simple book, called F.I.T. Faith Inspured Transformation by Kim Dolan Leto to finally help me have progress and victory in this area. For the first time in over 20 years I feel good in my skin and am a healthier me. You can do it to, you can do it through His sttength, you are worth it! You can find the book on Amazon and check Kim out at
      Kimdolanleto.com, you can find her on IG and FB too, there is a free accountability group called F.I.T. Sisters in Christ on FB. I am praying for you today Jennifer that you can have freedom abd healing. With much love and understanding sister, Rhonda

       Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. – Hebrews 12:1-2

    4. Jennifer, Can I say, “Me too sister…”
      Over the past year and half God has freed me from so much related to my health, weight and body image. As I surrendered this to Him He has made the difference. God used a book, a short, simple book, called F.I.T. Faith Inspured Transformation by Kim Dolan Leto to finally help me have progress and victory in this area. For the first time in over 20 years I feel good in my skin and am a healthier me. You can do it to, you can do it through His sttength, you are worth it! You can find the book on Amazon and check Kim out at
      Kimdolanleto.com, you can find her on IG and FB too, there is a free accountability group called F.I.T. Sisters in Christ on FB. I am praying for you today Jennifer that you can have freedom abd healing. With much love and understanding sister, Rhonda

      Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. – Hebrews 12:1-2

      1. Hello Rhonda, Thank you very much for taking the time to share this, I will certainly check this information out!

  2. Jealousy, bitterness, anger, just to name a few. Thank you for this timely message. I need to turn them over to the king, only he can heal me of these.

  3. For me, I’ve been seeking to let go of sadness, hurt, and pain over how my parents/brother(who are believers) have treated me, believed and told lies about me. Having to get used to the “new normal relationships”, since they won’t reconcile. It’s process that the Lord is using to teach me to depend on Him, that how He views me is what matters, setting boundaries, lots of hard but good lessons.

    1. As I was reading through the posts yours stood out to me. I am praying for you Susan. Praying that you see God’s work in your life. Remember that God uses everyone for the greater good. Maybe, just maybe, your greater good, was learning how not to treat others. You are the better child of God if you do not treat others as you have been, maybe still are, being treated. God loves you can rely on that. Pray for those that have hurt you. Forgive as God forgives you and keep believing that you have a special gift from God.
      God Bless you.

  4. Getting past the infidelity my husband has had and now getting through a divorce that I never wanted. It’s a heavy burden to check daily.

  5. Thank you for this post. Three months ago my husband lost his job. Then we lost our home that I adored and our car. We have moved in with his parents and our three kids, my husband and I share two little rooms while he looks for a new job. It’s been so hard and I’ve thrown myself the biggest pity party, but I’m going to try really hard to lean on Jesus more.

    1. I’m very similar to you. We lost our home too. Moved in with my dad who then sold the house because he had debts too.!!! I get so bitter sometimes and depressed about it. We still have so much debt that we will surely never pay off. It’s really hard but we can do this. We can if we cling onto Jesus. Hugs x

      1. Caroline-
        Don’t lose hope. You can and you will pay off your debts! Check out Dave Ramseys book at the llibrary. Total money makeover. Its simple, easy and possible!
        Brigid

      2. Caroline, thats so tough! We had a similar situation where we needed to rely on people unexpectedly because finance stuff fell off a cliff. The people were less than kind and complained about getting us food though they were quite well off :/ To be practical for a minute though my husband and I have learned of some debt solutions we didn’t know about even a year ago. #1 if you have credit card debt and don’t mind tanking your credit score (especially if it’s already bad) you can intentionally stop making payments for about 3 months then call them and negotiate a balance maybe half of what it was. You could probably google this strategy. Some places try to do it for you but my husband worked at a job where he did that as part of work and he assured me people can do it themselves. #2 if a person has good employment and a decent score like upper 600s they can apply for a personal loan to refinance and lower their monthly payments. This will also boost your score because it’s diversified debt. After 3 or so months your score will go up and the money you’ve saved on monthly payments can be used to pay down even more debt. Then you can apply for another personal loan and get an even lower interest rate. You keep doing this until you get to a super low rate and your debt is nearly paid off. That’s what we are doing this year for anyone it may help… As with all things spiritual these strategies allows you to do more and more slowly over time.

    2. Jenni, I am so sorry that you are going through this! I can only imagine how hard it must be. I pray that God will move quickly in your circumstances and that you will have grace, patience and His peace while you wait it out. What a blessing to have family to turn to in this time though. So may are not as fortunate. Keep clinging to Him…I’m adding your name to my prayer list.

  6. Fear of man, not being ‘good enough’ and hiding. This has stopped me from pursuing what I know is God’s call on my life.

      1. Me too and yes I will focus on the word believe because I do believe with god all things are possible ! I am working on transforming those negative thoughts and stop worrying about what the worlds thoughts of me are and only my saviors are important ! Hard to do but I BELIEVE

    1. Same here! Persecution and rejection are tough for me right now :(. 2 Tim 3 says all who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted. I keep trying to remind myself Jesus is talking about rejection too and that it’s too be expected here…what can man do to me? Romans 8…

  7. My soon to be ex left us two years ago. At that tine it was 5 years into our marriage. Six months in I discovered he was into porn, lying about when he was working, cheating, being narcissitic, using gas lighting to mentally abuse me, dating sites. I uncovered so much. He blamed me and being insecure and used gas lighting to say I was imagining things or he was just friends with women online. It was my fault that I believed even emails or facebook comments I would see. I want him to come home, I hold out hope he’ll change. Every text I get I hope isn’t another game but it is, every answer I give theres no response back. Its only a hook to see if I’ll take the bait. I have to let go. But I can’t its so hard. I want the man back that I first met. I can’t let go. ????

    1. That sounds horrible. He still has you conned into thinking he was at one time a great guy, when in fact, he was just pretending. Let him go because he’s a loser. Let the right man find you, a godly man who fears the Lord.

    2. Heartbroken, speaking from experience, take care of yourself and keep praying to God for strength. People don’t change unless they want to and they commit to the change and show it. Blessings.

      1. Hi Dee, Thanks for your comment. I know you were writing in response to someone else’s comments but ….I am going through a storm of my own right now (somewhat similar) and I just needed that reminder. I believe God sent that message through your comment to me. Blessings to you!

    3. I have someone I was with lie to me about scripture to maintain his hold on me. He told me pride and fornication were not sins. When I tried to argue back (I didn’t really read the Bible then) he would warn me that satan quoted scripture so I shouldn’t quote it to him?! Anyways God broke me free. I started reading scripture and found 99 references to pride being a sin immediately before I stopped counting. God later revealed to me when I was in the Spirit that the person was completely run by demons. Demons are not joke and require spiritual fighting in prayer. Stay strong!

  8. Courtney, thank you for another encouraging and convicting post! Thank you for your commitment to women all over the world…I love your heart for God and for us. May He continue to sustain you and bless you!

    Lots of love
    Lisa

  9. I’m letting go of the hurt, bitterness, and burden of “not being____ enough.” My father was verbally and emotionally abusive my entire life and physically abusive when I was young. It’s a burden I lay down daily and seem to pick back up just as often but God is doing a restorative work in my life and I’m standing firm in the new creation he is making me.

    1. Jasmine, I too had (have) an abusive father and understand the scars it leaves on your heart and life as an adult. With wonderful Biblical counseling and the Lord’s tender healing I feel He has protected me over and over again throughout the years. Since we can’t change who our earthly fathers are, I encourage you to let your childhood be a beautiful testimony to others about the healing power of Jesus. It still is a daily struggle for sure, but I’m so thankful that God can handle it all! 🙂 Praying for you friend.

  10. I am struggling with a crumbling marriage to a man who is an amazing husband, but a terrible stepfather to my kids. I struggle with do I let go or try to fix things.

    1. Roxy, are you desiring opinions and just putting your prayer request out there? I don’t know your situation but I know I tend to always think things are “either or” when I really need a 3rd option from the Lord. Just prayed for your clarity!

  11. What a wonderful message Courtney, thank you. As I look past into my life I have hurts and hangups from being a single mother, to now being remarried and a stepmother . I need to let go of some past hurts through my brothers and sisters as we have gone our separate ways due to my divorce. It’s very sad and unfortunate for all the cousins however they sided with my ex-husband and continue to have a relationship with him . And it’s been many years and it’s still hard for me to let this go. Thank you Courtney for sharing this message as the Lord knows I need to give it to him .

  12. What a great message! I already “knew” this, but it seems that I must relearn it every single day! Thank you!

  13. Courtney, I think of what you are going through as I listen to this post. I am in a somewhat similar situation. I have not done well in some ways – and holding on to wanting what I thought I was going to have is one way I struggle. I have to let go of that, it is forever gone. Thank you for your commitment and for your example.

  14. I loved, loved, loved your metaphor or checking my baggage. What a freeing concept.

    And I too can be tempted to rely on people to get my needs met, instead of trusting in God to meet my needs or to carry my deficits.

  15. Amazing words of wisdom and I’m loving the study so far, Courtney!

    Thank you for your continued hard work and staying in the Word. God continues to use you in great ways.

    May God Bless you and your family.

  16. I need to let go of self condemnation. I recently took a job promotion I didn’t really want and I’m not very happy in the position. I beat myself up everyday for taking this position and think of all the should haves and could haves. I need to move forward and stop looking back.

  17. Cancer. My daughter and I have both battled cancer in the last 3 years…(and some days we felt more like we were battling the chemo that was helping to save us from the cancer). I thought my world was rocked when I was diagnosed with it…then my daughter was. Without a doubt the Lord gave me peace and joy through those journeys….but the fear of that still looms out there.

  18. Courtney, I know you are not looking for accolades but you truly are one of the most genuine, simple, gifted Bible teachers out there. Thank You for being you and your faithfulness here. I loved the donkey and sheep analogy????.
    This was a great and spoke to my heart! My baggage is the baggage of doubt! My word for the year is Believe! Because with God all things are possible!

  19. l choose to let go today of my baggage of regret. Took someone in to be of help and it seems to bring me nothing but pain.
    I find myself often praying for this person to leave my home and possibly my family.
    I choose to let go of so much expectations from my husband and unforgiving spirit.
    Thank you Jesus for saving me.

    Thank you Courtney for staying true to who you are in Christ Jesus.
    I love you

  20. Infertility and grief. Two huge pieces of baggage my husband and I have been picking up and laying down for several years now. Your video post was very encouraging. I never thought of the fact that sheep are not “pack animals” and how the Bible over and over refers to God’s people as sheep…people needing to give their burdens to the loving Shepherd. Thank you for your insight.

  21. Thanks Courtney for all your hard work.
    Your Bible study , has made it easy for me to spend time with God and his word

  22. Thank you for this! I needed the reminder to lay all of my baggage on God! He will take care of all of my needs! I have several things that I struggle with-just like I’m sure we all do! Thanks for the reassurance that others are going through the same things like I am! God Bless you for all you do to encourage women!

  23. Same here……I felt like I had written what you just expressed…….memorial service for my mom today……sad day…..praying to have the ” mind of Christ”

  24. I have to let go of my rage, grief and shock at my being treated in a way I could not adjust with . This happened to be by someone close in the family, That I had just delivered twins a month ago probably heightened my sense of exasperation. I could deal with it and even a year later I hold on to the anger. Have prayed many times about letting go. But this note was the final stop. I have made a list of all that I felt bad about and am going to tear that paper in Gods presence committing that I will not dwell on these thoughts again. With the Lords help this is possible

  25. I need to let go of my son who has rejected the Lord and turned down the path of sin- drugs, crime, and now is incarcerated. I keep thinking there must be something I can do or say to bring him back to the right path, but he has rejected us as well. I need to let go and trust that God will seek Him out in His own way and time. It is so hard to let go of my child.

    1. Debby, that is really really hard. I know God doesn’t stop pursuing people. He can even send random saints to minister to your loved ones! Your post just reminded me I was so selfish today and didn’t want to stop to talk with someone who looked exasperated. But it’s someone’s daughter or son. I want to have more kindness for random strangers on behalf of those who love them but can’t reach them themselves. I want Christ to provide the same for my wayward loved ones!!! God works while we rest and He NEVER sleeps. God be with you my sister.

      @WifeOutside
      wifeoutsidethegate.com
      contactme@wifeoutsidethegate.com

  26. I want to give the baggage of my health anxiety to my Lord. It is such a lonely, scary place to be stuck in. It makes me so tired. I know that my story has been written, but when I fixate on what I may be feeling, it hinders me from living me story.

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