Whenever we find ourselves having to move on in life, we must believe that the best is always yet to come, says the Bishop of Stafford.

Writing to churches in the Diocese of Lichfield this month, the Rt Rev Gordon Mursell challenged people to think about what matters most in life and what they can let go of.

"What illusions about myself, what status symbols, what dark resentments, what accumulated clutter, need releasing if I am to travel on in faith?"he said.

"We keep kidding ourselves that we can go on through life simply adding more and more (things, experiences, memories,qualifications) to our spiritual luggage, without ever having to let anything go.

"Yet Jesus told his disciples to leave home and step out in faith with no spare bag or tunic (Matthew 10:10)."

Bishop Mursell is retiring to Scotland after five years as Bishop of Stafford and nearly 37 years of full-time ministry in the Church of England.

He admitted travelling light was "desperately hard in a consumer society which prizes stuff, and acquisitiveness", but encouraged people to see leaving as a chance to start anew no matter how fearful the prospect.

"However hard it is to believe, the best is always yet to come.

"We don't know, for the future is not in our control. But God is a nomad too, and walks with us into the unknown.

"The supreme symbol of leaving home in Scripture is not the closed gate of Eden but the Cross of Good Friday.

"For there, and in our place, Jesus let go the most precious thing of all - his life - in order to receive it back from the Father on Easter morning in a form even death could not destroy."