Laying aside every weight

This entry is long overdue for several reasons. Not only has it already been over two weeks since I said goodbye to Minnesota and headed halfway across the globe, but also the analogy that came to me two weeks ago has come back again and again to me. Here it is.

I wish I were a light packer. Sometimes I do well at that, but often my belongings are all too gaseous when I embark on an adventure--I let them fill all the available space. In the case of my trip to Chile, that meant packing two large luggage cases almost to the 50 lb limit, as well as lugging along my overstuffed backpack and my laptop case. Perhaps I should have let the picture speak for itself. Anyway, as soon as I got off the Megabus in Chicago on the first leg of my journey, I realized all too quickly what a pain it was to lug all of my baggage anywhere. Even the few blocks from Union to Ogilvie station made me feel like an old man. As I passed the morning in the Evanston BK with my junk conspicuously piled around me, a verse kept going through my head, or rather a portion of it: "let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us..." The ESV puts Hebrews 12:1-2 like this: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."


One thing I know for sure: if I had to carry around the luggage that I had with me before it was whisked away to my 767, I couldn't handle it very long. I like to think that I'm not a wimp, but after a few blocks, I was beat. The only thing I wanted was relief from that weight I was carrying. I began to think, "What if I carried spiritual baggage around with me all my life?" Answer: that would not be cool at all. Not only might that baggage consist of sins that I could hang onto, but as my Cru discipler last year aptly pointed out, the verse categorizes weight separately from sin, indicating that they are not the same. Are there ways in which I might be carrying around a hundred pound backpack of some useless pastime or toy in my life which, while not a sin, is keeping me from living the "high life" that God intended for me spiritually? If so, there's one thing I know for sure. I want that backpack in the dumpster.

Another interesting thing to notice is how universal that baggage is. Whether it's greed or excess of drink or poor habits or trivial pursuits--whether one is in Chile or China or Chicago--baggage is easy to find. Thankfully, wherever man can be, God is there too. No matter where we are, He is there to take that baggage and not only let us walk free but give us the wings of eagles to soar for him. Okay, weird anecdotal moment. This is crazy. Right as I started writing that--no joke--the song "Peculiar People" by Mute Math came on my headphones. First line of the song: "We will fly with the wings of eagles." Coincidence?

Let's be honest with each other and with God, recognize those weights and sins in our lives, and with the help of the One whose burden is light, let's throw them away and learn to fly.