suitcases...

I heard Dara Maclean's song "Suitcases" months ago and can't get it out of my head. I feel like we're always looking for this balance between baggage and freedom. We're afraid to be "free" for fear of stepping outside of God's will... but instead we carry around burdens from our past. How can we be free and not screw up?

Maclean teamed up with Ian Eskelin to write the song and it speaks to letting go of the burdens and running free. Even then I have warning lights going off in my head for fear of running away from something rather than running to God.

Believe it or not... I'm a thinker. I overanalyze and I question and as much as I want to believe I'm not making decisions based on what people think... I confess I am. I want to be free from that. I want to be free from past mistakes. Free from doubt. Free from pain. Free from fear.

Maclean's song definitely does not give us the magic cure. She literally says, "Just let them go." I'd like to think if it was that easy, we would have done it a long time ago. Or is it that easy? God broke off the shackles more than 2,000 years ago when Jesus took the blows for us. We don't need to suffer under guilt and insecurities... we are free.

"I want to paint a picture of God's complete restorative love and how through Christ, we have an opportunity to live free," shares Maclean. "This song does just that."

"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, 'If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'" John 8:31-32 (emphasis added)