When I walk to the church on weekdays, I inevitably come across kids going to school. If it is the right time, I come across many, many kids walking to school and they all have a backpack on their backs (Rucksack) and the fluorescent sash around them, front and back, so that they are visible in the dark winter months.
Have you seen the size of the backpacks that some of them are wearing? With some effort, they could fit in it themselves and be on someone else’s back. Then I wonder: what is in the backpacks that are so big? Are they carrying a library to school? Clean clothes? What?
I used to carry a briefcase to work in my former lives. Back then I had a very big, fat briefcase so that I could fit paper dossiers in it and review them at home. Later, the big fat briefcase gave way to a laptop case, but that online access made even bigger dossiers possible. Not just one or two of them, but all dossiers. A smaller briefcase is not the same as smaller work.
When I came to Switzerland, I decided that I would be a Swiss man and purchase a backpack. One blends in well when there’s a backpack to put your things in. If you doubt that’s true, just look around on the street, in the tram, in the bus: Swiss men are decked out with backpacks. They start out with backpacks as young kids, they have one when they’re going to university and they still use one when they are getting along in age.
I still wonder what everyone has in them. Especially when the backpacks are big. The contents of my backpack are humble. Just some necessary things and sometimes I use it as a small shopping bag when I have to pick something up.
All people carry backpacks around in the figurative sense. Let’s call them ‘life-backpacks’. Some are big, some are small. There are memories in them. Good ones and bad ones. Especially the bad ones take up a lot of space. Among the bad ones, there are a few notorious ones that fill up too much space: rejection, abuse, or disappointment. They weigh heavily and slow us down when we have to schlep them around.
Every so often, I take my real backpack and empty it completely. I shake it out; if necessary, I take a cloth and wipe it out and then I take all the items that came out of it and one by one, I put them back, or I decide I don’t need them any longer, or they’re not worth carrying them around.
When it comes to our life-backpacks that we are schlepping around, hear Jesus’s words: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:27+28).
When our life-backpacks are full of heavy things, we get weary quicker, and it often feels like we are carrying around quite a burden. Go to Jesus, unpack that backpack with him, clean it out, and then decide which things need to go back and which things don’t need to go back. Definitely leave behind the rejection, abuse, disappointment and bad memories. Leave them with Him. Find rest for your soul. The Lord Jesus is gentle and humble in heart. If you can leave your garbage with anyone, leave it with Him!
So, next time you see the little peats going to school with big backpacks, I hope this will come to mind again. No need to schlep a lot of debilitating garbage with you. The yoke of Jesus is light.