Dropping the Baggage Carrying the Blessing

Every night before I close my eyes my wife and I hold hands and we pray. My wife often tries to make this a time of deep intercession but that’s not its purpose. The goal of our prayer time is threefold. First, we thank God for the blessings of the day.

We specifically thank him for noteworthy things like a victory our child encountered or a word that God may have spoken to us in our devotions. Second, we pray that God would bless the people in our lives including our children, our family, and our spiritual family at Revival Life Church. Third, we ask God for peaceful sleep.

Having fought insomnia most of my life I don’t take a good night sleep for granted. We pray that God would give us good sleep, our children would get good sleep, and that his angels would minister to us. If you don’t already I recommend you get in the same routine.

At the same time I recommend that you would do the same at the close of one season and the beginning of another. For us in the West, the new year is a perfect opportunity to close one chapter and begin another. But instead of just closing the door on one chapter and opening another, we need to make sure were only carrying the blessings of 2021 into the next year and leaving the baggage back where we found it.

We all have baggage in our life. Because we live in a fallen world we are afflicted by the works of the enemy. Unfortunately, many of the works of the enemy come through people. Paul wrote to the church in Philippi that they should watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. Paul knew that if those dogs got their teeth into his disciples they would be scarred for life and taken from the grace of God. Truly much of the damage you received and the baggage you collected came from the mouths of dogs this last year.

In other words, the unresolved baggage of those dogs will block the blessing of God’s people.

As you come in to 2022, I want to help you collect the good that happened in 2021 in such a way that you can carry that blessing into the new year. I also want you to take out all the trash that was heaped upon you by the works of the devil. This is going to take a little work but I promise you if you’re willing to get out of your comfort zone and put in a little work your 2022 is going to shine much more brightly than 2021.

Here is what you should do:

1. In the next few days set aside a few hours alone with God. Bring in a pad of paper and your journal.
2. On the first piece of paper spend some time writing out who you want to be in 2022. Don’t write down goals or set milestones, write out who you want to be.
3. On another piece of paper write out who you are right now. Be brave and be brutally honest.
4. This last step is probably the most important. Slowly work through your journal of the last year and write out everything God said about you in a new entry in your journal. Write the date and what God said. Take a few pages. This is important.
5. Pray through what God has said to you over the next few days. Declare these words over your life. Believe them. Let them become part of your self identity.
6. After a few days, go back to the page where you wrote where you are at and see how much of your self revelation contradicts what God says about you. This is the process of leaving the baggage in last year.
7. Look at your page of who you want to be in seeing how the prophetic words God has spoken to you line up with who you want to be. This is how you bring the blessings of 2021 into 2022.

Get the prophetic words that really stood out and make them part of your daily declaration for the next month or two. Allow these words to shape your behavior in the next year. Craft your time in a way that triangulates your plans with who you want to be and how God sees you. Let it shape your thoughts and flavor your words.

This is how you will see the glory of God revealed in your life in this new year.