The Stages Of A Backpack

Back to school…a phrase that can produce cheers or grumbles and groans.
This is the time of year when emotions are mixed…as if in a blender.
Mothers prepare their children by calling them in from outside a little earlier…pushing up bedtime a little sooner, so that the early ring of the alarm clock will be a little easier to handle.

Back to school shopping is an art in itself: the lists, the sales, the cleaning out of closets, the squeak of new sneakers, the sharpened pencils that have yet to touch the paper, the smell of never used crayons as each child longs to try the sharpener on the box just once…
The search for the perfect backpack.

I am amazed at the stages of a backpack.
I remember the year when I had a child in preschool, third grade, sixth grade, ninth grade, and eleventh grade.
They had vastly different backpacks!

I remember watching my preschooler carry her empty backpack to school.
Wanting to be like her older brothers and sisters, she felt that she needed to have one, but she didn’t have the things to fill it.
All she really needed her backpack for was to carry her precious artwork home to me.

My son was in third grade that year.
His backpack contained one folder, a book for silent reading, and his lunch.
As the year progressed, the necessities remained the same, but he added a found penny, a rock collection, a pencil that looked as if someone’s dog enjoyed it as a snack, and a snack from his lunch, last Thursday.

My sixth grade son had a trapper folder with its many pockets, an assortment of textbooks, a book to read, pencils, pens, erasers; snippets of paper with his ideas and writing, a math calculator, and his lunch.

My daughter’s ninth grade backpack had a student planner for assignments, more textbooks than a locker could hold; a comb and brush, a book to read, sneakers for gym (if a more stylish shoe was worn that day), binders for certain subjects, orchestra music, and her lunch.

My oldest daughter was in eleventh grade at the time.
She had an assortment of textbooks, planner, folders, graphing calculator, pens, her lunch, and because she played Varsity field hockey and lacrosse, an additional duffel bag with her sporting equipment, along with a water bottle.

The backpack is really a parable for our lives.

We brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. (1 Timothy 6:7)
The older we get…the more things we pack in our backpacks.

What if we came to God unencumbered?
What if we were like the little preschooler whose backpack is a mere accessory?
I have watched preschool backpacks get tossed aside at the playground, all but forgotten, because a more important activity is at hand.

What is the more important activity?
Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus chose the better way.
Her posture was always one of submission.
We find her at Jesus feet much more often than we find her standing.
You cannot carry a heavy burden on your back and rest at a person’s feet comfortably.

I removed the burden from their shoulders; their hands were set free from the basket.
(Psalm 81:6)

Unencumbered.
Free.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

We approach God with our burdensome backpack.
We wonder why we have trouble falling to our knees in submission.
God our Father longs for us to come to Him.
He wants us to lay down our burden.

Often, our backpack is filled with un-confessed sin, regrets, failures, legalistic rules, traditions…things that keep us from coming to Him.
Things that obscure our view of Him.
Things that rob us of joy!

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:13-15)

We empty our backpack, at the foot of the cross.
Jesus takes our burden away.
Everything that once weighed us down, is nailed there.
The cross triumphant!
That triumph is our freedom.

So, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:36)

We hold onto things…even burdensome things, because we get used to them.
We have held onto them for so long.
It is hard to lay them down…even when laying them down is the best thing to do.

In C.S. Lewis’ book, The Great Divorce, a man arrives in paradise with a lizard on his lapel.
The gatekeeper tells the man that lizards are not welcome in the New Eden.
He tells him that he must throw the lizard to the ground and stomp it to death.
The man agonizes over his dilemma.
He desperately wants to enter heaven, but the little lizard has been his friend for so long.
How could he give him up?
Would heaven still be wonderful if he was there without his lizard?
Even though the lizard demanded things from him, and made his appearance ugly, the man was used to it.
He gave this ugly thing permission to stay.
Finally, the man tears the lizard from his clothes, throws it to the ground, and crushes it.
It is transformed before his eyes and becomes a beautiful horse on which the man rides through the gates of heaven in triumph.

There are no backpacks in heaven.
We hold on to things here…even ugly things…because we learn to depend on them.

The only thing we can truly depend on is Christ.
He can be trusted.
He provides the appropriate place to lay down our burdensome backpack.
His glorious, triumphant cross.
Free!