Leave Your Luggage at the Gate | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Leave Your Luggage at the Gate | Previous Challenge Entry
By R. S. Christian
08/22/05
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We have all used or heard the term leave your baggage at the door, or he or she is carrying excess baggage. Simply put it means that we are toting around some things that we should have left some place else. Maybe it is a problem that we had at home and decided that we needed to pack it up with our lunch and take it to work; or a failed relationship we are hauling around, unfairly scrutinizing the next person who comes into our lives. No matter what it is, we should discard it before we get to our next destination. Some problems are greater and take longer to deal with, but before we can go further, we need to make room.

The definition for baggage is suitcases, trunks, and personal belongings of travelers. In addition, baggage is things (objects, circumstances, or beliefs) that get in the way. We are all travelers, our trip started the day we were born. As the years went by we accumulated some type of baggage, whether it was social, emotional, physical, and/or spiritual. Most folks tend to carry at least two or three of these at the same time, though some bags are heavier. The weight depends on the road traveled and whether they were able to lighten their load when they arrived at their destination.

Now the word luggage means something lugged especially: suitcases for a traveler's belongings. When we are dragging luggage around we have allowed one or more of our bags to become too full. Somewhere the wrong road was traveled and the destination was not one where we could find rest from our weariness. This is when we need to make a u-turn and retrace our steps.

It is not God’s intention for us to heave luggage, but to fill our bags with Him. Therefore, He has designed a road map for us to follow. First, we need to leave our luggage at the gates and enter them with thanksgiving. As we begin to thank God for all the things that he has brought us through our bags become lighter. Next, we drop some more things off at His courts for here we start to praise. This is where we leave our social baggage because better is one day in His courts than thousands elsewhere, so we are not concerned with anyone else but Him. Finally, we dump the remaining bags as we begin to worship our King. In the inner chamber, we are filled with all that the Father has for us. Here he bestows gifts and surprises that we would not have been able to carry if we had not left our luggage at the gates.

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