When you consider interacting with an item, its weight is deceptively important. 

You probably know this to be true when you consider doing an activity and you’re a few pounds heavier than the last time you did it. 

I know for myself, when I play hockey, I feel a whole lot better on the ice when I am about five pounds lighter than my present weight. 

Just five pounds makes a difference. 

But that’s not all. The weight of most things should be considered.

Recently, we purchased a new TV for our family room. My plan was to put the old one in our workout room. I delayed doing that because the old TV is a plasma television, weighing in at about 90 pounds. 

You don’t flippantly hang almost 100 pounds on a wall and think it will stay there. I had to do some research and make sure I got the right kind of mount. 

The plan was to hang that beast of a TV about six feet off the floor. That certainly was not a one man job! It took two of us to mount that baby on the wall.

But even slight weight variances can make a difference.

Just recently I broke a hockey stick. It’s the stick I used all the time. 

I do have a back-up. In fact, I have a few because they are all kind of heavy and I kept buying sticks hoping that one would feel a little lighter. 

These hockey sticks are not like those from the old days for two reasons: 

For one, back in the day I would buy a hockey stick for about $15. It might only have lasted for a couple of weeks but, if I bought the stick from Canadian Tire, I could return it and get a new one for free.

That was then. 

Now sticks cost over $100, up to about $350. They last a lot longer … if you don’t take a lot of slap shots. 

The other reason sticks are different, from back when I was growing up, is the material they are made of.  

All Sticks used to be made entirely of wood. Now there is no hint of wood in sticks, just carbon fibre … and they are sooooo much lighter. 

My old Sherwood PMP 3050 was heavy – like a 2×4 made out of spruce. I might as well have been carrying a tree on the ice with me. 

Now sticks are light – 430 grams and lighter. In fact, the stick I just broke was 400 grams and my back-up sticks weigh in at around 427 grams. 

It really doesn’t sound like much difference, but every time I go to stick handle or shoot the puck with one of my back-up sticks, it feels like I have cement for a blade. 

It’s like I taped my hockey stick with lead-lined hockey tape. 

It doesn’t take much weight to make a big difference. … I’m thinking I need to buy a new every day stick and keep the ones I have as back-ups. 

Here’s the thing: Every once in a while we need to take a hard look at our lives and consider what might be weighing us down spiritually. Excess spiritual weight could be rules we follow or wrong theology we hold to. It might be legalism or a sense of superiority. We can add spiritual weight by justifying something that is wrong or sinful. Practice being spiritually lighter by shedding unnecessary and harmful spiritual weight. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is one thing you should remove from your life right now? Leave your comments and questions below.

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