What Is A Weight?

Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. Hebrews 12:1b

Spiritual weights are anything that slow us down.  The baggage we drag behind can largely be demonic residue from our choices. Weights can feel heavy but if the weights are comprised of enjoyable vices, they will feel light for a time.  We won’t notice their effects right away.  Nevertheless, they have still reduced our freedom to run and time will reveal that.

Spiritual weights are usually presented as sins; things that we chose to do that were outside of God’s plans for us.  To take inventory, we’re given a list of common sins and asked to check the boxes, similar to what we do when filling in paperwork for a new doctor.  Yes – I’ve had this.  No – I’ve never had that.  Let me emphasize that this approach is far too elementary for a spiritual inventory.  Less obvious things can hold us back and they don’t show up on a sins checklist.

• Wrong beliefs are weights. If I believe lies about myself, falsehoods I’ve come to wear like an overcoat, that covering is heavy to my spirit.  The danger is that it’s so familiar that I don’t think of taking it off.
• Bad attachments are weights. If I am connected to another whose passion is not Jesus, then I have placed myself in a precarious position to be influenced by their thoughts and behaviors.  I remember the words of my parents.  ‘Choose your friends wisely.’  Unwise associations create a drag on my windspeed.
• Listening to critical voices imposes another kind of weight. ‘You’re stupid. You’ll never get it right.  ‘You can’t make up for all the ways you’ve failed me.’  These wound the spirit and cripple my limbs for moving forward.
• Harboring resentment and refusing to forgive may be the heaviest of all weights. When I, as a child of God, put on His crown and decide to sit in His seat of judgement, I wilt under the burden. I was made to dance and worship the King, not try to become One.

All of these involve our inside world and their damage is much more sinister.  No wonder the Psalmist asked God to search His heart.  He didn’t trust himself to do it.  I don’t usually recognize what is sabotaging me either.  But God always knows and is eager to reveal it to me; not to nit-pick, but to lighten my load.  He is a compassionate cheerleader.

Once identified, I’ll throw it off.  Lord, I believe Your interpretation of ‘weights.’  Amen