There is a chair on interstate 580 South, between Reno and Carson City, Nevada. I know because I passed it this morning on the way to work. It is a large, used, fabric lounge chair sitting by the concrete guard wall of the highway. You could sit in it and comfortably watch cars speed by. The only logical explanation is that it bounced or blew off of someone’s pickup truck. Another possession pruned by God from someone’s life.
You see it all the time and have probably done it yourself a good dozen times: moving from one place to another, transporting your possessions by car, U-Haul or a friend’s borrowed pickup truck. And always there’s the question: what to bring with you and what to leave behind, sell, or give away. Some people bring everything. Others divest themselves of everything. Most fall somewhere in between. And almost always there are items packed that never make it. The shattered dish, the lamp that breaks, the antique table that gets scratched, the plant that dies, and the chair that God plucks from your pickup truck and drops by the side of the road.
It’s hard to move forward in your growth as a person without leaving some things behind. In fact, it’s impossible to do so. You can’t climb a ladder if you don’t let go of one rung and reach for the next. Likewise, you can’t embrace a new identity or way of seeing and being in the world if you are still attached to the old identity. So leave that old chair by the side of the road. Some hitchhiking vagabond will thank you in his prayers.
