Empty the jar

We have this blue Mason jar that sits on a shelf in our tiny Polly Pocket home. At the end of the day we put all our loose coins in that jar. In today’s culture we don’t use much cash so the jar has stayed pretty much at the same level for years now. When the two younger kids were in school and living at home, we would sometimes give them a twenty-dollar bill to go eat after a football game or something and they were supposed to put the leftover cash or change in the jar. It seems like they always kept the change - at least it never made its way back into the family change jar. At the end of high school both of them had a nice savings account.

The jar is handy. I have thrown paperclips in it in the past so I would know where to find one when needed. That never really worked. Whenever I would need a paperclip, I would always forget where I had placed it. The jar has been good to collect loose nuts, screws and a few 22 shells among other things.

Our lives collect things like that jar. People collect a lot of things like pride, self-centeredness, broken relationships, hurt feelings. These things can become hard feelings, jealousy, animosity, bitterness, unforgiveness or envy. Most of these things evolve into insecurities, anxieties, obsessions and dysfunction. This is why we see so many jacked up lives in our culture and drama is no longer an elective like it was in high school.

The airline calls this stuff baggage and it’s not free to take your baggage on your trip, there’s a cost. Likewise, there’s a spiritual cost. God calls it “hindrance.” We are hindered from running the race of Christ because we have too much baggage (Galatians 5:7). The baggage of life can get heavy and we can get tired of carrying it. Our Mason jars are way too full, aren’t they? Most of us live a “weighted” life, not the peaceful, rested, free life Jesus has promised.

The writer of Hebrews tells us in chapter 12 and verse 1, “let us…lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…” Lay aside, throw off, put out by the curb the stuff that hinders. Ha, if it were only that easy, right? I have a theory, it takes people a lifetime to collect this stuff, to get that jar full and they like those paperclips buried under those old, dirty pennies and the occasional quarter. At some point they think they might need a good paper clip. Paperclips (anger) are tangible, we can see them in the jar and they make us feel good, they give us confidence, but it’s a false confidence, but still a good security blanket on a not so sunny day. What I’m saying is sometimes we like being angry, hurt, sad, feeling sorry for ourselves (sad but true).

Here’s the problem. In order to run the race Jesus has marked for us we must replace that false confidence with faith. Faith tells me I can do all things (including grow up, forgive, love, be hopeful, die to self) through Christ who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13). The Mason jar, as attractive as it is, is nothing but a distraction to the life God has for me. It’s time to take out the trash (or empty the jar), He told me to tell you that.