Packing for the World Race can definitely be a difficult and stressful thing to do. One blogger even labeled it as packing anxiety where one sits and stares at the wall for long periods of time trying to cope with not being able to take everything they want to pack. It is a guarantee that all of the things that you want to take with you will not fit in your pack. There are so many packing lists online it could make your head spin. My favorite was one that compiled a list of so many different things that one should pack that the writer even admitted it was impossible to pack them all.
Packing is one of my least favorite things to do. Through past experience I would definitely have to qualify myself as an over-packer. I like to be prepared for what might happen while on my trip. I look at the things that I have pack and it hard not to think, “this is not enough” or “what if I need it for_____”. But then, I have to think about how much better off I am than the twelve disciples when Jesus sent them out.
8 These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. 9 Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Mark 6: 8-9
The disciple’s packing list was far less than what I have packed. Picture below features the items I put in my big pack.
If the disciples could get by on what little they had, then surly God will provide for us in our journey when we are able to actually pack stuff.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your lifee]”>[e]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:25-34
This passage has much more meaning for me now, and I’m sure I will understand it much better after I have had more time to live it.
