HeartThrob: Weights

By Jackie Wahl (October, 2001 )

The admonition "Lay aside every weight" from Hebrews has taken on new meaning for me. When my husband accepted the invitation to take a missionary's place for three months in England, I was excited. Having made a short visit previously, we had really warmed to the people and the country's history.

We did not anticipate any difficulty since there was no foreign language and the driving on the left side of the road with the driver on the right side of the car was very quickly mastered when we drove the motor-ways before. But I must say, stepping into everyday life very quickly revealed a unique culture.

Perhaps most readily did I encounter difficulty in the kitchen. Conversion is the key word! On deciding to make some good American brownies I was my recipe called for 2 ounces of Chocolate, but the bar I bought contained 180 grams. In the trusty dictionary I found a chart and saw that I needed one-third of the 180 ounces. A few American items are showing up on their grocery shelves such as Bisquick, with which I usually make my banana bread. However, the recipe on the box called for 75ml oil, 315 g Bisquick, 225 g mashed bananas and 175 g Castor sugar. I just "chucked" it all and trusted my memory, missing it a little on the sugar.

Recently, I read about a missionary in Thailand who baked two pies for a church function. She gave her husband a taste of one, and very quickly they went into the garbage. She eventually found out that she had used an American measuring cup for the flour, a British one for the fat, and a Thai cup for the milk. I must have at least four different such cups in my English kitchen and none of them are labeled. I'm sure the madame of this kitchen knows exactly which is which.

And there are other inconvenient matters. The oven chart tells me that 350 degrees must be change to 180 minus 20. I can do that! All water faucets are single, one cold and one very hot. And spoons are tiny dessert ones. At the grocery, sweet potatoes are the size of bananas, and I really should learn to eat Brussel sprouts and leeks. All cookies are biscuits and baked beans are white beans in tomato juice.

Eating out is another exercise. To stop at what appears to be a quaint, interesting place is probably just another pub. But one is usually safe at the Tea Rooms or Coffee Shops. Just don't ask for cream in your tea for that is just what you will get, thick cream. Ask for white tea and you get the customary milk. Don't ask for jelly; that is jello. Ask for jam. Even at Burger King, don't ask for egg and biscuit. Something like a hamburger is what is served, with tomato sauce on the fried egg. But their chocolate is "to die for."

If someone is in the hospital at Royal Barks, don't look for it in the phone book. What they mean is Royal Berkshire. I thought the USA had a monopoly on idioms, but not so. If you didn't get your kip today, you missed your nap. And then there is the weather: a little blue sky, warm sunshine, black churning clouds, descending fog, drizzle and rain. That's what you may have all in one day, maybe in one morning. This weather, added to the driving, not on the motor-ways, but narrow, curving country roads walled in by tall hedges, is an experience only compounded by the high speed of the cars.

By now you are asking what all this has to do with laying aside weights? It is just the realization that most things that weigh us down cannot be literally laid aside. Sometimes they are in the natural flow of life. What we must lay aside is our inclination to fight against them, to be frustrated and defeated by them. If the inconveniences of life become weights, we are in danger of losing our effectiveness to the ministry. To run "with patience" our race perhaps implies there are difficulties alongside the race. We probably need to reevealuate our priorities. If we can push inconveniences way down on the list, we can keep those weights off our shoulders.

We need to ask God for wisdom and then act smartly. King Solomon speaks of his father David's instructions in Proverbs, "Get wisdom . . . forsake her not . . . Wisdom is the principal thing." What is wisdom? It is the knowing "how to's" of life. And one of those is knowing how to go around or leap over an obstacle that cannot be removed. Inconveniences are often such obstacles.

Missonary Verda Peet in her book Sometimes I Prefer to Fuss relates words sent to her by a friend in Thailand. She said that when she did not know how to frame petitions for a baffling situation, she remembered that the Lord Jesus was already praying for these matters. She then could say, "I join in your prayer, Lord Jesus, I add my 'amen' to whatever you are praying for the church." This truth taught in John 17 is our comfort and confidence as we deal with life's weights.