Time to Remove Some Hindrances?

Hindrances can be very subtle. They sometimes start out as a good thing but are turned, ever so slightly, in the wrong direction. As an example, consider Eve (Gen 3:6). She ate of the tree not only because the fruit looked delicious, but because she desired to be wise. Her thinking and decision making process was swayed by her desire for wisdom – a desire that should have made her seek out God as the source of wisdom rather than look outside of Him. That desire became a hindrance to her.

Other words for hindrance are obstacle, impediment, nuisance, constraint and encumbrance. Encumbrance is a banking term used to mean a mortgage or debt, and the Bible tells us that whom we are indebted to is our master (Matt. 6:24). In this instance, we are speaking about ‘what’ or ‘who’ has become our master because we have allowed it to take our attention and affection away from God, weighing us down in the same way a large debt can weigh us down.

As Paul indicated in Hebrews 12, we are to throw off every hindrance that slows us down or distracts us from putting God first in our lives. If we could put an image to this it might be the picture of Elijah, who tucked his long garment under his belt before he ran to Jezreel (1 kings 18). His garment would have tripped him up and slowed him down - leaving him bruised, out of sync with God’s timing, and frustrated - so he removed it from around his legs.

It’s our job to ‘throw off’ the weight of the hindrance – others cannot do it for us. We are responsible to recognize the weight through the help of the Holy Spirit and get rid of it. That weight may have subtly crept up on us in the form of lack of sleep, too much television, over eating, attitudes, Godly desires that have turned to fleshly desires (ie: Eve’s wisdom), or hyper focus on problems instead of God. Those things that take our affection and attention off of God are the hindrances that God wants us to remove – and then RUN the race at Godspeed!

“Let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and … active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us, looking away from distractions and toward Jesus…” (Heb 12:2-3 AMP paraphrased)