Shoes and Sand
In 2013, a small plane took to the sky in Pontiac, Michigan. The pilot was taking his family on a pleasure flight before leaving for the U.S. Naval Academy. Upon takeoff, the pilot told air traffic control: “we’re a little over weight … we’re going to have to come back and land”. Shortly after, the airplane crashed, killing all onboard.
Sadly many plane crashes have occurred for the same reason. The aircraft was simply carrying too much weight. Airplanes are an engineering marvel, yet they have limits as to how much weight they can bear. The airline industry is very meticulous to the details of weight. Several years ago, we took one of my cousins to the airport. You can quickly guess the gender of my cousin when I tell you that one of the suitcases was completely filled with shoes! When the airline employee weighed her luggage, he informed her that she had too much weight. So she emptied out some shoes. After weighing the suitcase again, the airline employee shook his head. Out came some more shoes. Finally, she was told that her luggage was cleared for the flight. Isn’t it amazing that a multi-million dollar aircraft would have been put into potential jeopardy because of a suitcase full of shoes? Think about it. If every passenger would have carried on extra baggage, the aircraft would have probably crashed.
And as humans, we are certainly no different. We too have limits on the emotional baggage that we can, or should carry.
Hebrews 12:1 tells us: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”
Weights can be harder to identify because they are not found in the “thou shalt nots” of the Bible. Sin carries with it the heavy load of guilt. Weights on the other hand carry no guilt because we have done nothing sinful. And we often fail to recognize their damaging effect until we are being crushed by them. There is a verse in Proverbs that uncovers this powerful truth.
Proverbs 27:3
“A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty…”
To illustrate this verse, imagine that I have placed a large stone in your left hand. Can you imagine how heavy it is? Now, imagine that I have placed a grain of sand in your right hand. In the real world, you would not have even felt this as it dropped in your hand. These light grains of sand seem to be so harmless as the wind blows them around. Yet massive pyramids in Egypt have crumbled under the collective weight of….you guessed it, sand.
What weights are in your own life? What seems so harmless but always leaves you at the brink of overload? 1 Peter 5:7 says: “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”
Isn’t it time to empty your suitcase of some unnecessary weight?