Life can feel unrelenting. Between paying bills, juggling relationships, and facing daily pressures, it’s easy for our spiritual lives to slip into the background. But what if the very things we’ve allowed into our lives (choices, habits, influences) are quietly pulling us away from God’s best?

When we’re exhausted, discouraged, or overwhelmed, we tend to make decisions we wouldn’t normally make. Our spiritual foundations loosen. The disciplines that once anchored us become optional.

Just like the disciples who couldn’t recognize Jesus walking on water because their eyes were fixed on the storm, we can miss God’s presence in our lives when we’re too focused on survival.

Spiritual drift is subtle. It's like being one degree off on a compass. At first, it’s hardly noticeable. But over time, it takes us far from where God intended us to be.

Proverbs 3:5 calls us to “trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”

The challenge? As we gain more life experience, we become more confident in our own understanding--our methods, instincts, and familiar patterns. That wisdom isn’t wrong, but it’s incomplete.

God invites us to build our lives on His wisdom, not just our accumulated knowledge.

Romans 12:2 warns us not to conform to the patterns of this world, but instead to be transformed by renewing our minds.

The tricky part is that not everything that harms us looks harmful.

Proverbs 14:12 reminds us: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”

When the world normalizes certain attitudes or habits, we can easily convince ourselves they’re harmless — especially when we see others doing the same.

This isn’t just about avoiding “obvious sin.”
It’s about what you’re consistently allowing into your mind and heart.

What are you looking at?
What are you listening to?
What have you been beholding?

Psalm 37:37 says, “Mark the blameless and behold the upright, for there is a future for the man of peace.”

Your spiritual future is deeply shaped by what you choose to focus on.

The enemy doesn’t usually start with obvious evil.
He starts with exhaustion, distraction, and isolation.

Once we’re tired and off guard, he introduces things that appear innocent: a habit, a relationship, a form of entertainment, a mindset.

Just like Adam and Eve, we don’t begin by eating the fruit.
We begin by walking closer to the tree.

Sin rarely shows up with flashing warning lights.
It accumulates quietly:

• a small compromise
• a subtle shift in attitude
• a habit we justify
• an influence we stop questioning

Bit by bit, these things become part of our identity, weighing us down like rocks thrown into a backpack we never empty.

The issue isn’t just one choice, it’s the collective weight.

When we feel spiritually stuck, our instinct is to push harder.

Try more.
Work more.
“Do better.”

But trying to “press on” without removing what’s weighing us down is like cleaning the outside of a backpack that’s full of heavy stones.

The real issue is inside.

The good news is this: God never asks us to fix ourselves alone.

Just as God provided a ram in the thicket for Abraham, He provides a way for us.
Jesus took the weight we could never carry.

2 Corinthians 10:4–5 reminds us that our fight isn’t fought with human strength. We have divine power to demolish strongholds and take captive every thought that doesn’t honor Christ.

James 4:7–8 gives us the path to freedom:
“Submit yourselves therefore to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”

Freedom begins with honesty; naming what you’ve been carrying and willingly laying it down before the Lord.

This week, take an honest inventory of what you’ve been allowing into your life. 

• habits
• attitudes
• entertainment choices
• relationships
• unspoken compromises

Write down anything the Holy Spirit brings to mind--not to shame you, but to reveal what’s weighing you down.

Don’t try to fix everything at once.
Start with one thing.
Surrender it daily.

Ask yourself:

1. What am I consistently beholding that may be shaping my spiritual health?
2. Am I so tired that I’ve stopped caring about what influences I allow into my life?
3. What would it look like to lean into God’s way instead of my own understanding this week?
4. Am I carrying anything that doesn’t belong to my identity in Christ?

Remember: Freedom begins when you lay down what God never asked you to carry. Jesus came so you could walk lightly, freely, and fully alive.