If you have ever had the opportunity to do a long backcountry hiking trip you know the joy of taking off your pack. It is my favourite part of a hiking trip. I know I should say it’s the breath taking views or the accomplishment of peaking a mountain but I deeply love getting to take my pack off.
No matter how well I adjusted my pack or placed the weight on my hips - after 5 or 6 hours, my 30 lbs pack would start to get heavy. My shirt would be drenched in sweat, my shoulders, back and feet would ache. But that moment of finally reaching the campsite and unbuckling my chest and waist straps was bliss. I would let my arms go loose and my pack would to fall to the ground. I went from awkward and big to light free, and small. From pack horse back to human.
My social media, emails and screens are flooded with people’s suggestions of what I need to start doing in 2024. There are discounts on plans, new habits to implement, diets, books to buy and read, exercise programs to start and equipment to purchase. There are planners to help me meet my goals and apps to help me stay focused on my word for the year. If I just buy or pick up this new thing I can bring fulfillment to my unsatisfied life.
Starting something new implies that I have space to pick something up. But, as I approach the end of the year I am still carrying things from 2023. Not everything has disappeared or relinquished just because the calendar said so. My year didn’t magically end with a tidy bow. I haven’t reached the campsite and unbuckled my pack. I am still hiking.
I imagine you are too.
As I read the advertisements and see the commercials I can hear the words of John the Baptist in my head, “He must become great, I must become less.”
The trajectory of the Christian life is not about picking up more or being more. It is a journey of becoming less - lighter and lighter in ourselves and weightier with the glory of God. It is the movement of taking off the hats or false faces I wear and laying them down, one by one.
Jesus invites us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
In the original language “burdened” is better translated “overburdened yourselves”. Jesus is saying that you and I lay on weights we were never meant to carry. He is calling me, and you, to lay down all the ways we try and be God to ourselves, all the ways we inflate our egos, all the idols we carry and, with God’s help, we shall become less. Not insignificant but less false-God and more human.
I can’t help think of Eustace as Aslan helps him painfully peels off dragon skin after dragon skin until finally he’s reduced from a heavy enormous dragon to a little boy. Eustace is free once he is himself - a human. Only then can he unbuckle his pack and rest.
The road to wholeness in Jesus is increasingly light instead of heavy. Growing up I thought that the aim was to become like God. But I am learning that wholeness is in becoming truly human, redeemed and free. Jesus is calling me to my humanity and away from the burdensome deity I try to be.
So, as 2023 comes to a close, I find myself thinking about unbuckling my pack. I am thinking about the sheer relief of lifting that burden off my shoulders and living with a little less of me and lot more of God.
The more I lay down the more I am able to take on Jesus’ yoke. He promises that it is easy and light, that he will give me rest. Isn’t that what all of us are looking for anyway?
This New Year I will be making a quiet moment to open my hands in the presence of the living and loving God and ask how I can become less in 2024 and how God can become greater.
God has always been faithful to fill the spaces that I create for him. And as he does, I will catch glimpses of the eternal life Jesus offers me now, this side of heaven.
Happy New Year and thank you for reading and sharing and commenting and supporting my writing. I can’t express how much it means to me that you do and that you would.
"Jesus is calling me to my humanity and away from the burdensome deity I try to be." Yes.
I remember that part with Eustace too...peeling off the dragon skin was so painful. But there's life under it all.
Happy New Year Lisa. Grateful to have "met" you this year!