Preparing for the More God Has for Me - Part 7: Empty My Backpack
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. — Psalm 139:23
I'm about to walk the Camino de Santiago with my father again…but this year I'm carrying my full 30-pound backpack for the 200-mile trek.
That backpack has become a metaphor for something I've been praying about before we start. I believe there may be more ahead for me…more responsibility, more leadership, more resources to steward, and more that God may ask me to carry.
So I've spent these weeks asking God to prepare me for His more.
But as I get closer to leaving, my prayer is becoming simpler: God, empty my backpack.
Anyone who has carried a backpack for a long distance knows that you don't pack based on what you could carry, you pack based on what is necessary. Every extra pound eventually matters.
I think I've done the opposite in business sometimes.
Entrepreneurs are collectors of weight. We collect opportunities, ideas, responsibilities, businesses, projects, expectations, problems, and commitments. And because we're capable of carrying a lot, we can keep adding things without stopping to ask whether they belong there.
I've done that. I've carried businesses simply because I could build them. I've carried responsibilities because I knew I could do them well. I've carried things that belonged to other people because stepping in was easier than trusting them. I've even tried to carry outcomes that ultimately belonged to God.
And some of those things weren't bad; that's what makes this difficult. Sometimes the heaviest things in our backpack aren't sins or obvious mistakes. They're good things that belonged to another season.
Hebrews describes laying aside everything that hinders as we run the race God has marked out for us. Not everything that hinders us is necessarily evil. Sometimes it simply doesn't belong on the journey we're being called to walk now.
That's what I want God to show me. I don't want to arrive at the next season carrying yesterday's assignments, someone else's responsibilities, unnecessary expectations, my need for control, or opportunities I was never called to pursue.
And I don't want to decide by myself what comes out.
That's why Psalm 139 has become such an important prayer:
Search me, God.
Not, "God, confirm that I've packed correctly."
Search me and show me what I can't see. Because maybe I've spent too much of my entrepreneurial life asking God to help me carry the business backpack I've packed instead of giving Him permission to unpack it.
So that's how I want to begin this Camino.
Not asking God for a bigger backpack, or trying to prove how much weight I can carry, or even assuming I know what more is supposed to look like…
…Just opening the bag before Him and saying Father, search me.
As I bring this series to an end, all of us entrepreneurs have the opportunity to ask the Lord to search us and search our businesses.
WE CAN ALL PRAY
Father, show me what belongs in this next season and what doesn't.
Show me what I'm carrying because of calling and what I'm carrying because of ego, fear, guilt, habit, or control.
Give me the courage to put down good things when their season is over.
Give me the wisdom to recognize what You've actually entrusted to me.
And if my definition of "more" is different from Yours, change mine.
I'm going onto this next season believing You're preparing me for more.
But I'm going with open hands.
Before You show me what I'm supposed to pick up next, show me what I need to put down.
Amen.
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