By: Betty Predmore
A little over a year ago, my family took a road trip to go camping. We loaded up “everything but the kitchen sink” for our great adventure and I was proud of the fact that I had prepared for any possible need my family might have. My poor husband had to find a way to load all of my “preparation” into our van the evening before we set out. To put it mildly, we were loaded to the max. We got only a few hours into our journey when our load became disengaged from our van and much of it ended up on the highway. Ladies, in case you have never had the experience, let me assure you that there is something very humbling about picking up your underclothes out of the middle of the highway!
Many of our things were lost that day, and others were ruined beyond use. When we got to our destination, we had to make some purchases to get us through our vacation. Of course, we purchased just what we needed, just the basics to fill our needs.
Our lives can get a lot like my overloaded van. We pile on more and more. (More activities, more obligations, more chores, more relationships, more expectations….MORE, MORE, MORE!). Why are we never satisfied? When is enough ever enough? We can’t get by with the simplicity of having just what we need. We need to complicate our lives with wanting more.
If I had taken only what we truly needed that day, we probably could have avoided the incident. But I was intent on being over-prepared. I was intent on not missing a thing. I would have been so much better off, my family would have been so much better off, with taking just what we needed.
Ladies, let’s get back to the basics. Let’s stop overloading ourselves with too much “stuff”. I don’t know what your “stuff” is, but I do know this…Jesus is enough. He is all we need. He will provide for us. He will keep our paths straight. He can keep us from losing our “luggage” in the middle of a highway, when we seek Him and His wisdom. 2 Corinthians 1:12 says this…For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.
Let’s let God’s grace wash over us. Let’s let His mercy flow like a roaring river. Let’s allow God to be ENOUGH in our lives. Let’s lay our “stuff” down at the foot of the cross, not carry it with us, piling on more and more, until we can’t hold up under the weight. We don’t need “everything but the kitchen sink.” We just need Jesus!
