What once helped you survive may now be weighing you down. God invites you to release old tools, trust Him again, and walk freely into the next season.
Some things might keep tugging at you.
It might be a habit you built in survival mode.
A way of thinking that once kept you steady.
A relationship or role that carried you through a hard season.
It helped you once. But now it feels heavy.
Here’s a story I keep coming back to, which helped me understand a valuable lesson:
A man is traveling a long road when he reaches a wide, rushing river.
There’s no bridge. No way around it. So he does what he has to do. He chops down a tree, builds a small boat, and crosses safely.
The boat works. It saves him.
On the other side, before continuing his journey, a thought settles in:
What if there’s another river ahead? What if I need this again?
So he straps the boat to his back and keeps walking.
An hour later, he is exhausted. Progress is slow. The boat that once helped him now weighs him down.
You see, the problem was never the boat.
The problem was carrying it past the river.
In life, you build boats, too.
Coping habits that helped you survive.
Mindsets that protected you in chaos.
Roles you stepped into because someone had to.
God used those things. They mattered. They served a purpose.
But seasons change. Terrain shifts.
What once helped you cross can quietly keep you stuck.
We tell ourselves we are being prepared. Responsible. Careful.
Underneath, there is often fear.
Fear that we will not know what to do next.
Fear that we cannot build again.
Fear that letting go means vulnerability.
So we drag the old thing along. “Just in case.”
The weight shows up as exhaustion.
As frustration.
As the sense that growth feels harder than it should.
Scripture speaks gently into this tension: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing.” (Isaiah 43:18–19)
He prepares you for each stretch of the journey.
The strength you needed back then shaped you.
The boat you built taught you resilience.
The season you survived formed wisdom.
You are not dishonoring the past by releasing it.
You are honoring God’s work by walking forward unburdened.
Letting go does not mean you forget.
It means you trust that God will meet you again.
Pay attention to what feels unnecessarily heavy.
So, today, ask yourself, slowly and honestly:
What am I carrying that once served me but no longer fits this season?
What am I holding out of fear rather than faith?
Where might God be asking me to travel lighter?
You do not need to anticipate every future river.
You only need to trust the God who taught you how to build the last boat.
He will do it again.
