There’s only so much of your past God will allow you to take into your future.

So the Israelites remained stripped of their jewelry from Mount Horeb onward. (Exodus 33:6)

Knowing what we take into our future is limited is comforting…until we consider we might not get to take the things we want. We don’t like not having control. But the truth is, if left up to us, we’ll take stuff God never intended us to carry and things that will get in our way and we’ll fail to take some of the stuff that we’ll actually need.

We simply don’t have the perspective to know what God will use and how He’ll use it. We don’t have the perspective to know what we need to hang onto, at least for a season, and what we need to leave behind.

It’s not just the stuff of the past, present, or future; it’s our thought process that surrounds it all. It’s how much we let it consume us or how much we choose not to focus on and learn from something. It’s choosing our own way instead of God’s.

Let God do your packing and unpacking. He knows the trip ahead of you.