Unencumbered

 Read Hebrews 12

Here we go!

You are God.

My trust is in you.

Show me your ways.

Teach me your paths.

We have been memorizing Psalm 25 verse by verse over the past few months. These thoughts should be familiar. What thoughts?

Teach me.

Show me.

What now?

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and get rid of your junk. Cast off anything that encumbers you.

Move forward. Seek God and draw near to him.

OK. But what is it that encumbers us? Let’s give it a shot.

·       Anxiety and Worry. We are told not to be anxious and not to worry, but we do it anyway. How effective can we be if we are worried so much? Bad stuff could happen, but if it does, let’s just live through it once. Don’t worry about it before it happens and don’t drag your miscues around with you. Confess and get back in your race unencumbered by worry.

·       Forgiveness. Maybe you think someone wronged you or maybe you wronged somebody, but in either case, we must forgive. We should forgive the person who wronged us and we should have a conversation with the people whom we have injured seeking their forgiveness.  We can’t be a body at rest—the whole inertia thing—we must keep moving forward in this area of forgiveness.

·       Conflict. This is often rooted in insisting on our own way. We want to do things God’s way but sometimes we presume our way to be God’s way, and often it just isn’t so. For the last half of the last century, I proffer that most Americans thought they were Christians even though they didn’t read their Bibles much. They just identify as Christian. God does not need to adjust his will to ours. He is the constant, the steadfast, our rock. We are told that as much as it is possible, try to get along with others. We don’t sacrifice our beliefs if our beliefs truly come from God, but we need to make sure that’s the case. We can live with and love and work together with people who don’t believe or think like we do, but how we think needs to be governed by what God says and not our emotions and comfort zones. Those are just a new paganism for our modern times.  I catch a little flak—mostly in fun—for challenging us to read our Bibles every day. The question is, do you consider reading your Bible and learning God’s ways as a burden or a blessing?

·       Comfort. There is nothing wrong with a little comfort, but when our comfort keeps us from doing what we are called to do, it is weighing us down. It encumbers us.

·       Doubt. Yes, Christians deal with doubt. We can what if ourselves into a dysfunctional state. Believe. Do not doubt. Doubt weighs you down. Doubt creates anxiety and then we are just feeding this confluence of things that weigh us down.

·       Coveting. Sometimes, we are weighed down by our desire for something in this world. That new fishing boat, new car, new job, new shirt, those really old-looking ripped-out jeans—which back in the day didn’t come that way. You had to earn your own rips and tears. Maybe we covet recognition, adoration, or applause. If we desire something—anything—more than we seek and desire God, that’s coveting and it is not healthy. It encumbers us.

·       Control. What about control?  Do we try to control everything? If we do, we are encumbered, burdened by that desire.  We can’t control much in this world. You might have thought that I was out of Marine Corps examples, but here’s one more. Back in the day, when issuing combat or operational orders, the final section of the order is titled:  Command and Control.  For as much as many well-educated Marine officers poured into these orders to make sure they were as thorough as possible in the time available, all the senior officers could do was chuckle and bite our lips when we got to Command and Control. One thing learned over the course of many exercises is that we just don’t control much of anything. Despite the signals and phase lines, boundaries and registered targets, timing, and other factors prescribed by the order, most of us just laughed to ourselves as we set loose armed Marines on the task before them, knowing we could get blown up, they could destroy the wrong target, or total chaos might ensue. If you want to control everything, you are encumbered by that desire.

·       Fear. Let’s not leave out fear. Sometimes we fear failure. Sometimes we even fear success. If fear is a substantial part of your life and your decision-making skills, then fear encumbers you and you need to kick fear to the curb.

·       More. There are more, but we will leave those for your personal exploration and examination.

Long ago and far away, that is in the mid-1980s—I was at Amphibious Warfare School. It’s a school for captains and trains you to command or serve in a staff position in battalions and regiments. As a part of this 3-year school packed into 9 months, we each had to write a paper, something like a thesis for a master's degree.

Mine was on the mobility of the individual Marine. What I learned was that through the centuries, combat weapons have become more lethal. Vehicles can move faster. Communications become more capable and more complicated. Protective equipment got better, at least in some ways.

But the mobility of the man on the ground—the grunt—just got heavier. I knew this from personal experience, but I also did the research. The average load of the infantryman was just over 100 pounds. It was more if you needed clothing and equipment for extreme cold or for chemical and biological warfare.

Maybe 100 pounds doesn’t sound like too much if you are about 200 pounds and in good shape, but I will tell you that 100 pounds gets heavy quickly for just about everyone.  Now, think of a Marine who is only 120 or 130 pounds carrying this load.

Visualize a Marine who weighs 125 pounds with 115 pounds on his back. That’s encumbered.

And then, we add ammunition. That’s heavy.

That’s encumbered. That’s weighed down. And all that modern technology could do was try to distribute the load better. Cartridge belts, packs, and flak vests all became integrated to help spread the load, but the load was still carried by one person.

That’s still encumbered.

Marines will do the pack mule thing again and again, but when it’s time to fight, they have to shed the gear. They can’t be encumbered.

They often shed everything that is not needed for the fight at hand. They can round it up later.

We need to shed some gear too. Anything that encumbers us as we navigate this world trying to put the words of our Master into practice has got to go.

Worry, anxiety, conflict, excess comfort, doubt, coveting, control, fear, and more weigh us down.

I keep small weights in my office. At my age, I need a little something to keep muscle tone. I’m not hauling hay and having to buck bales up onto a trailer. I’m not scaling cliff faces. I’m not going on 25-mile hikes with a full load.

But I do need to do something to keep a little muscle tone, so I have some little weights.

My grandkids think they are huge. They can barely move them, but they continue to try. That’s our nature. We try to carry the load all by ourselves.

Sometimes we need help with our loads and sometimes we need to get rid of a whole bunch of what we are carrying with us.  Worry, anxiety, conflict, excess comfort, doubt, coveting, and more weigh us down.

We have to get rid of the junk if we are going to grow in God’s grace.

So here is what you take with you for this week.

The psalmist said show me your ways and teach me your path. God has done that. Now we must put his words into practice.

In terms of what we read this week, that means:

Eyes fixed on Jesus.

Cast off anything that is weighing us down.

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and get rid of your junk.

Amen.