Shaking the Dust Off of My Feet
An Invitation to Travel Light
God whispers: travel light. Shake the dust from your feet. Guard the pearl from the trampling hoof. Pour the new wine only into skins that can stretch with it.
Jesus spoke in pictures like these, not as quaint metaphors for another time, but as instructions for a way of life. They are words for those who carry the kingdom, who must keep walking when the road changes beneath them, who must trust the Spirit’s timing even when the way forward feels uncertain.
These are not about building walls. They are not the self-help version of boundaries. They are invitations into a way of being that trusts the Spirit’s leading, knows when to offer and when to withhold, and can walk away without bitterness.
There is a sacred difference between leaving to protect yourself and leaving because the Spirit says go. Between cutting people off and releasing what they cannot carry. Between guarding your treasure out of fear and stewarding your pearl with care.
I used to think that faithfulness meant endurance… that if I just kept showing up, loving more, explaining better, bending further, the gap might close. Sometimes it did, but more often, I simply grew weary. And slowly I learned: some silences do not need to be filled, some rooms do not need to be reentered, and some burdens are not mine to lift.
Travel light, the Spirit keeps reminding me.
Not because I am better. Not because I am bitter. But because the Spirit keeps me moving. I am learning to be not only a believer, but also a be-leaver, trusting that leaving can be an act of faith as surely as staying (Out of the Embers, Bradley Jersak).
There is new wine fermenting, and it needs space to expand. Some pearls must be kept safe until the right hands are ready. There is dust that belongs to another season and should not be carried forward.
So I will travel light, and I will keep walking.
This is not separation for its own sake. It is the next step in the same journey Jesus began: reshaping how we live, the weight we carry, and where we go.