“…Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”
–Hebrews 12:1
This has been a stressful, emotionally exhausting couple of months. The needs, the appointments, the tests, the new problems cropping up, the hum of uncertainty in the back of my brain, the internal pressure to do something! – but the external reality that there’s not a lot I can do to speed anything up or solve it.
I have pushed to the absolute end of my capacity, waiting for answers, resolution, and a plan to manage what’s wrong and move forward with life. I crossed into a doctor’s office and gripped his hand with relief because finally, the waiting was over, but he didn’t have the answers. The threshold of his door wasn’t a finish line, it was just the first step of the next lap of the race.
If ever there was a time to strip off extra weight, it’s now.
Are you there, too? Are your steps growing heavy? Are you trying to rally, but you have even further to go than you thought?
I appreciated, as I read this verse in Hebrews, that it dealt with weight and sin as two distinct concepts. It mentioned “every weight” and then talked about sin in particular. But sin’s not the only thing that weighs us down. Our lives get hit with heavy things that aren’t our fault. Doing a word study on “weight” got me laughing because one of the definitions was “a mass.” I’m still coming to terms with the news that I have a mass in my neck; it’s been a heavy knowledge. Yet…somehow, I can choose to strip off enough weight to run with a light heart. But how? Anyone else out there struggling with how in the world you strip off the weight of something you can’t resolve?
“We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, He endured the cross, disregarding its shame…”
I loved this verse…until this month. You do it by keeping your eyes on Jesus. But how? HOW do I keep my eyes on Jesus with all this going on? I am not someone who ignores even minor distractions easily, so telling me to tear my eyes away from this felt like an impossible ask. I am not great at laying aside every weight.
When we lived up in Washington State, Cody got me a husky mix puppy for Christmas. True to her breed, she loved nothing more than to run hard and be in the snow, so we put together a make-shift sled and started training her to pull us. When we taught her sled dog commands, I thought we would just need four directions. If I could get her to go, stop, turn left and turn right, that would be enough, right? Wrong.
She’s not a car. She’s a dog. Dogs are not only taking in your directions, they’re taking in their surroundings, and, especially as puppies, they see a lot of things that are more interesting to them than the straight track ahead.
So, there is a special command for when you see they’ve become distracted and you realize they are about to go off track. “On by.” It means, “Leave that alone. Keep going.”
We’re also not cars. We’re people. We’re not just blindly responding to directions. We are also taking in our surroundings. There’s the load on the sled that we were designed to carry, and then there’s the extra workload of plowing through heavy snow off-trail because we’re angling toward a distraction. So Hebrews 12:1 tells us, “On by – Leave that alone. Keep going.”
How does keeping our eyes on Jesus help us do that? He’s the one ahead of us on the trail. We’re running in his tracks. And He finished. So, we can finish. He hit the cross, and he kept on going for the sake of the joy set before Him. He’s the one that proves we can make it past the difficulty, and that what’s waiting for us on the other side is worth it.
You can’t control the wildlife, and the trail we’re on is not tame. So, what’s the best way to not get killed by a moose or a bear you’ve noticed out in the brush? Keep your eyes on the trail and run hard. Don’t turn toward the distraction. Leave it alone and keep going. On by.
“When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth…He will bring me glory by telling you whatever He receives from me.”
Jesus marked out the trail, then He sent his Spirit to run it with us. He is with us every step of the race, coaching us, directing us, and warning us. We stay light-hearted and on track by keeping our eyes on the Champion who finished the race out in front of us and our ears tuned in to the Musher who urges us on from behind.
So what about the things that ARE our fault?
People are all so different and all sorts of different things trip us up. For me, as I considered this verse, I asked: Lord…I’m having a really hard time enduring. I can’t control the external difficulties, and they do affect me. But will you show me where there is something on my part that is tripping me up?
And man, did it hit me like a stack of bricks.
You worry.
Oh. That’s just me trying to prepare.
I’ve already prepared you.
I get why the verse says it so easily trips me up. Worry is the thing I most easily justify. It’s the thing in me that runs absolutely rampant if I give it even the slightest foothold.
If the musher tells the dog to keep going, and the dog tries to run straight, but keeps eye-balling something off to the side, she can get tangled up in the lines. So. Easily. Even obedient steps can lose a lot of their strength to a heart that’s in knots.
If you’re waiting for me to resolve this one for you, I can’t yet. It’s the thing that so easily trips me up. And every time I’ve gained some momentum in the area of saying “no” to worry, the Lord has entrusted me with a harder thing to practice with. So far, I’ve never succeeded at that harder thing on the first try.
I’ll just encourage you with the reminder that He’s patient. And everyone has a thing that so easily trips them up. So, it can be valuable to ask Him what that is for you, keep an eye out for it, and get into the practice of inviting Him to come untangle the lines for you as often as you need Him to, so you can regain your endurance for the run ahead.
“Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1)
Here’s my last thought for you, especially if, like me, you feel weary and frustrated with how the run has gone so far: I didn’t choose the course.
Believe me, if I had, this is not what it would look like. The course I prepared for didn’t have sharp turns or slippery ice, and I could maneuver it without tipping the sled or getting tangled in the lines. The course I prepared for made me look impressive. But that is not the course God set for me.
He set this one. And it is not easy and I am not navigating it smoothly. I don’t look as good as I want to. It is revealing a lot of my weaknesses. In fact, I think for some of this, I have been the pitiful, injured dog that’s riding in the sled while her foot gets a break. There’s just not a whole lot of glory in that. There are easier races. Races where I could have been a front-runner. This one is above my skill level and it does not play to my strengths. But it’s the one He chose for me, and I trust His choice.
So can you.
When we make it to the finish, it will be His skill that got us there. It will be His victory. His trophy. His glory.
But you know what I saw in every single picture of the Iditarod champions, year after year? It wasn’t a lone racer, standing tall, and proudly holding up his trophy. It was a grinning Musher, seated on the podium, hugging his dogs close.
So, when the conditions are harsh and your endurance is flagging, remember who’s running this race with you. He loves you. He’s with you each step of the way. His voice is directing your steps, urging you to keep going, reminding you to keep your eyes on the trail and not to take on extra weight. He’s there to untangle you when you get knotted up. He knows you, He chose this course and He has the skill to navigate you through it. This will not be easy, but it will be worth it. And when you finally pull across that finish line, He’s the kind of champion who pulls you up on the podium with Him to hold you close and share the glory.
“And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all His glory.”
“I am writing to all who have been called by God the Father, who loves you and keeps you safe in the care of Jesus Christ…Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into His glorious presence without a single fault.”
dig deep | draw close 