“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.

In Matthew 12:36, we are told that one day we will give an account for every word, and I’m getting a tiny glimpse of that these days as my own personal word auditor (my nearly four year old daughter) seems to remember just about everything I say. Often she’s watching to see if I follow through on an instruction or direction I’m giving (like “I will take you outside when your toys are picked up”).  And certainly every casual promise I make to “play in a minute” or take her somewhere “sometime” is recounted before long as she asks me to make good on my word.

My daughter’s sharp memory prompts me to only say what I really mean and intend to do so I don’t end up with a list of things to fulfill. But there’s a far greater reason than my convenience that I want her to have confidence in what I say to her: both now and especially as she grows, I hope to share many things with her about the reality of God, the gospel, and having her own relationship with Him. I don’t want the important things that I discuss with her – things that could affect aspects of her eternity – to seem like another thing that I may or may not really mean.

God’s attributes of faithfulness and truthfulness (Numbers 23:19) allow me to trust Him with complete assurance. Do I mirror these aspects of God? Am I a parent, family member, teacher, and friend who keeps my promises, no matter how small? I know that there will be times I let my daughter and others down when my actions don’t match my words.  But the more they do, the greater the potential impact of the most significant truths to the people in my life.