Laying Aside Every Weight

Have you ever felt God calling you to something, only to realize your mental picture of what that calling looked like was completely wrong?

There's a powerful story about a young man who attended a week-long retreat at a Dominican monastery during his high school years. The place was operated by monks who lived under a strict rule: pray and work. They took vows of poverty, chastity, and celibacy. They observed periods of silence. They spent hours each day in prayer, meditation, and study.

During that first retreat, this teenager heard God's call to ministry clearly. But the thought of spending six to eight hours daily in solitary prayer and study felt impossible. He wanted real relationships, not just a relationship with books. For an entire year, he wrestled with this tension between God's call and what he thought it required.

The beautiful twist? Years later, he realized he actually does spend six to eight hours daily in prayer, study, and meditation—but not isolated on a mountaintop. Instead, it's woven into a life of serving others, building community, and reaching people for Christ.
God's call on our lives rarely looks like what we initially imagine.

Hebrews 12:1 offers us a critical instruction: "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."

Notice the distinction between "weight" and "sin." Not everything holding us back is sinful—sometimes it's simply heavy. Sometimes it's good things that aren't the best things. Sometimes it's our own expectations, our plans, our ideas of how things should work.
The beautiful imagery here is that we don't need to be strong enough to lift these weights off ourselves. We simply need to roll them off. No heroic strength required. Just a willingness to let go.

What weights are you carrying today? What expectations, disappointments, or self-imposed standards are slowing you down?

Beyond weights, we also face sins that entangle us. Three particular sins can quietly sabotage our effectiveness:

1. The Sin of Faithlessness
   Romans 14:23 declares, "Whatever is not from faith is sin." This cuts deep. How many areas of our lives are we operating in without genuine faith? We might have faith for some things while simultaneously worrying about others. Faith means trusting God completely—not just believing He can help, but actually relying on Him instead of our own efforts, opinions, and plans.
   
   Faith requires waiting. It requires being still and knowing that He is God. For those of us who prefer action and control, this feels unbearable. Yet faith that doesn't require waiting isn't really faith at all.
   
   
2. The Sin of Knowing and Not Doing
   James 4:17 reminds us, "Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." This one stings. We know the right thing to do—the right time, place, and people—but we don't always do it. Sometimes our heart motivation is off. Sometimes we're simply disobedient.
   
   
3. The Sin of Legalism and Judgment
   2 Corinthians 3:6 warns that "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." Legalism happens when we try to hold ourselves and others to standards that only Jesus could meet. We look at the physically fit homeless person with a spare change sign and immediately judge. We assess people based on external appearances and behaviors rather than recognizing they're created in God's image.
   
   The truth? We don't know their story. We don't know their struggles. We don't know what battles they're fighting.
   
   When we spent years trying to live up to impossible standards, the result was crushing guilt, shame, and condemnation. Freedom came when we stopped trying to earn righteousness and started receiving it as a gift through faith in Jesus.

So how do we actually lay aside these weights and sins? How do we develop the endurance to finish the race?

Hebrews 12:2 provides the answer: "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."

We look to Jesus. We keep our eyes fixed on Him—not to the right, not to the left, but straight ahead at the One who is worthy of imitation.

This isn't about isolated monasticism. It's about relationship. Jesus didn't call us to a life buried in books but to a life transformed by His presence that overflows into the lives of others.

John 4:35 declares, "Do not say, 'There are still four months and then comes the harvest.' Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!"

This is a harvest year. People are ready. Resources are coming. But are we ready? Have we dealt with the weights and sins that hinder us from reaching those who are ripe for harvest?
The goal of our spiritual life isn't just personal salvation, knowledge, or experience—though all those are necessary. The goal is that these things overflow from our lives to impact others. We're not saved simply to be saved; we're saved to serve, to reach, to harvest.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:22, "I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." This requires us to properly assess the people God brings our way so we can communicate in ways they understand.

Perhaps it's time to lose the religious jargon and speak simply. Perhaps the greatest gift we can offer someone is simply to listen—truly listen—without judgment or agenda.

Everyone who competes is "temperate in all things" (1 Corinthians 9:25). Tempering—what a word! Steel is tempered by repeatedly heating it in fire, hammering it on an anvil, and plunging it into cold water. Each cycle makes it stronger.

How many times have you been heated, hammered, and cooled? These aren't punishments—they're the process that makes you strong enough to endure, to finish, to win the prize.

Today, whatever weight is on your shoulders, whatever is holding you back from God's calling—just roll it off. You don't need superhuman strength. You just need to let go.
God's calling on your life is to fill you with knowledge of Himself and His power so that it overflows from you to help harvest what is ripe and ready. You were created on purpose, for a purpose, and that purpose is to reach others with the love of Christ.

The race is set before you. The finish line is clear. And Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith, is cheering you on.

So roll off the weight. Deal with the sin. Keep your eyes on Jesus. And run to win.