Carry Only What Is Needed

Whatsoever series

Philippians 4:4 calls us to rejoice first. What follows are gentleness, prayer, gratitude, peace, and protection of our emotions and thoughts (v. 5-7). Finally (then), we can parent well when our conversations are framed by true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable – excellent or praiseworthy – things (v.8).

Galatians 5:22-23 describes our character as a bundle: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

As I considered how to pack and unpack these themes, the “all” of it started to feel too heavy to carry out. And then, the Lord helped me to recall a trip I had, and the value there was in packing only what I could physically carry on me. It’s the truth. It was quite a trip!

I had smooshed a lot into five days and my carry-on bag, but the pinnacle of crisis came when I realized I had 32 minutes to make a connecting flight. Thirty-two minutes may be enough time for some airports, but not the one I would be standing in to make my flight home! Also, consider that the valets tagged my carry-on and everyone else’s in line at the boarding gate of my initial departing flight. I could not imagine a way to collect my bag, complete a 20-minute walk between gates, and be able to do any other necessary activity along the way. I was going to need a margin of time, but how? Where?

Of the three factors I needed to complete to reach the gate, two were non-negotiable. I could not walk any faster than my fastest walk. It’s still 20 minutes. I am also at an age in my life where there are necessary reliefs to accomplish (you can chuckle if you feel you must, but some of you know what I mean!). The one thing I could change was my carry-on bag. I literally ditched it to minimize the time spent disembarking one flight and making my way to the next one. With the absolute must-haves (my favorite jeans and sneakers) fit them into my personal bag, the rest of it including my rolling bag stayed behind in the safekeeping of my family. Bagged with only what was necessary, I felt freer and lighter. It felt possible! I was going to make it!

How does carrying only what is needed connect to speaking what is true, as in Philippians 4:8?

Be gentle with them. At LU, I watch all our children adult bravely. But know that there is considerable vulnerability in them on whether they can adult well; if they can make it; will they fail…There is a huge, almost crippling fear factor about failing. They want so much for you to be proud of them.

And you may be very proud of them. You may be elated that they are doing it, and yet at the same time, as my husband and I have felt in our own journey, you may initially struggle with feeling sidelined from your children’s adult lives. Caution: don’t pack your emotions into your child’s bag to carry!

Here’s how to lighten their load! When they are available by phone, resist peppering them for information. Resist laying at their feet all the ways you are discouraged, worried, or fearing for their success. Questions about their day, classes, homework, and their next day off will not be enough to reach or hear their heart. Besides, their answers only get shorter as outside pressures rise! There may not be enough mental or emotional energy for more than good, okay, fine, or I don’t know as pressures on their expectations, your questioning approach, and your emotions heap onto it.

If this is where your conversations are right now, change it up! Text that you are praying for them today. Text what you know is true – God equips, God defends, God provides, God is their refuge. Send them a smile or heart emoji! You may be surprised to get an emoji in return. When you do talk together, frame it by asking how you may pray for them. Ask how to support what they want to accomplish.

“Tell me how to pray for you best right now” will go so much further. What my husband and I experienced was not that we could not ask questions – it was that we had to change the questions. Conversations flowed easier from the new approach!

May it be true for you and your family “…that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4).

Think on these things!