“Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

A paintbrush, a mirror, band-aids, a measuring tape, and toilet paper.  These were all items that a few weeks ago the pastor in our church in Rhode Island (where we attend when we are there) removed from her backpack as she prepared herself for the coming of Jesus in the Advent season.  As I looked at the items and thought later about each of them, I was struck not only by the symbolism of what these items represent for the construct of the baggage of our lives, but also that the same can be said about the cultures of our companies and organizations.  There is plenty of painting over the real problems, egos, hurting, comparison to each other, and messiness in how we treat each other.  It reminds me why the greatest impact we can have sometimes in our work is that we don’t represent what will naturally occur in company cultures, but instead we try and avoid the baggage and go about our work in a way that doesn’t carry or create additional cultural baggage.

We have just a couple of weeks left before we celebrate Christmas.  Each and every day between now and then gives us the opportunity to make way in our lives for Jesus.  Today would be a great day to take an inventory of what needs to come out of our backpack to rid ourselves of the baggage that could get in the way of us having the greatest of Christmas seasons.

Reference:  Romans 13:14 (New Living Translation)