It has a way of piling up, doesn’t it?

Prior to JC’s & my recent departure from our jobs & apartment, I began the process of collecting & organizing items for our return to the trail. After 4 seasons of walking across America, we know what we like to take.

One evening, I decided to gather up all of our First Aid items and prepare a collection of them for the trail. I had an empty ice cream bucket, with a lid, and I thought that would make a good First Aid kit.

I couldn’t believe how many items we had accumulated. On the rug, in our living room, I had a massive pile consisting of 100’s of adhesive bandages in a variety of shapes & sizes, latex gloves, squares & rolls of gauze, individually packaged items like rubbing alcohol swabs and ammonia inhalants (I pray we never have to make use of those!), and tubes of various ointments & creams.

I stood up, grabbed the camera, and snapped pics of the pile. It was then I noticed the big, red cross on the lid of the metal First Aid kit a gentleman had given to us during our 4th season on the trail. It caused me to think of the cross on which the Christ was crucified…

Colossians 2:6-14 NASB

Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

having nailed it to the cross.

Forgiveness. It is the reason for our walk, and the message JC & I pray for opportunities to share.

But, in the same way we have amassed a pile of unused items to treat physical injuries, we continue to gain more & more knowledge of God’s word, will & purpose without offering, often enough, His message of hope to those who are spiritually dead.