Ryan Bingham

14 January 2010

“How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV… the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home… I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.”

This poignant “motivational speech” from Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) in the highly acclaimed movie Up in the Air, continues to play over in my mind. The critical look at relationships and the complications they bring to a life are presented in thought provoking fashion. Rarely do I ever recommend a movie and certainly I am not saying people should rush out to see a “R” rated flick but the message of the film and even the paragraph above are worthy of your consideration. We live in a world where relationships are becoming more and more of endangered species. With our ever changing technology from texts to Twitter, from I-phones to Facebook rarely are people connecting “face to face anymore.”

We seemed bent on lightening our loads of relationships since as Clooney states they “are the heaviest components in our life.” In our world where calories and carbs are looked at with a critical eye, so too it seems are our relationships. We seem to be making choices to do without. Certainly life is more encumbered with people and they weigh us down at times. However, to begin paring them out of our lives so that we can live longer and move faster has our relational arteries clogging faster that a double bacon cheeseburger.

Instead of purging our relationships we need to be purposing them. Let’s concentrate on spending more time with people with the intent to listen so as to become more involved in their lives as we allow them more access into ours. Make yourself more vulnerable, knowing the risks that are involved as you take and make more time for friends. We all know there are no guarantees that come with relationships and we have the wounds and scars to show for it. Yet friends are rewarding and make us better people for ourselves as well as for those around us.
Take the effort this year to become involved even more with people. That might look like getting in a LIFE Group or a Bible Study or asking someone to be your prayer partner. Maybe you should think about talking to someone about helping you read through the Bible this year together. Whatever you decide, do it with the purpose of adding even more weight and significance to your life through meaningful relationships.

May 2010 find you toasting (raising a glass) your friends rather than toasting (burning) them.

Bruce

0 Comments

Leave a Comment...