“Why do I have SO much stuff?” 
I angrily asked myself this question last week as I walked down the street in Taipei, pulling my very overpacked suitcase while simultaneously carrying an extremely heavy backpack and two smalls bags that were bursting at the seams. My back hurt and my fingers were swollen. But that wasn’t all. I still had two large additional suitcases waiting for me down the street, all filled with my belongings from a year of living in Taiwan. I started to panic as I tried to think about how I was going to get everything from downtown Taipei to the airport. Was this really all my stuff? Why was it so heavy? Why did I need it all? Why was I so attached to it?
Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad to carry all that stuff if I didn’t have to walk a mile. Or maybe it wouldn’t have been so horrible had the weather been pleasant and cool. But unfortunately, none of those things were in my favor, so as I trudged along in the unbearable morning heat, I found myself burdened from the weight that my stuff had brought. I was angry because I hated that I needed all this stuff. I hated the weight and exhaustion my need had created. I hated that I simply couldn’t live without it all, but had to carry it with me.
Hebrews 12:1-2 says “…since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Paul is likening the Christian life to a race. In a race, no one thinks of carrying heavy stuff with them, no matter how beautiful or amazing the stuff is. Why? Because runners know that those things are only going to slow them down and make the race more difficult, especially when the race is long and filled with struggles. Often times, the weights we want to carry in our lives can be good things, just like all of those things in my bags that I told myself I couldn’t live without. But without a doubt, the stuff we choose to carry with us will slow us down. It will exhaust us and leave us angry. It will steal our joy because even though freedom is offered to us, we still choose to run burdened with cares and weights of this life that we tell ourselves we can’t live without.
I think the key to why we should and can lay aside every weight is at the beginning of verse 2: “Looking unto Jesus…” When we look to Him and behold the beauty and worth of Who He is and what He’s already secured for us, we realize that we don’t need the extra weights in our lives, because they’re so small and insignificant when compared with Christ.
Weights come in various sizes and packages. Sometimes we’re even blind to the weights that are burdening our lives. As we look to Jesus and follow Him, there may be things we simply have to let go of and lay aside, not because they’re bad, but because Jesus is just so much better.
