Luggage or Baggage? A Critical Distinction

LuggageYesterday I went to the local flea market in search of some new luggage. Perhaps that sounds like an insignificant event, but it was an exhilarating experience for me. Why? Because new luggage is a declaration of my intention to go someplace!

If you’re stuck and immobilized, there’s no need for luggage. The only reason you need luggage is if you have a vision to travel!

I’ll admit, at this point I can’t honestly tell you where I’m going. But the exact destination isn’t the issue here. It’s all about mobility, fresh vision, and getting unstuck.

I sense God stirring a vision I first had in my mid-twenties—to play a role in filling the earth with the glory of the Lord (Habakkuk 2:14). Pursuant to that vision, purchasing new luggage is a step of faith and a prophetic declaration. It’s a statement of my renewed desire to fulfill God’s purposes in my life.

Ironically, I’ve also been thinking of another word, baggage, which is often used as a synonym for luggage. Although the two words can mean the same, baggage has some very negative connotations: “things that impede or encumber one’s freedom, progress, development, or adaptability.”

While luggage is all about vision for the future, baggage is focused on our failures and frustrations in the past. We’ve all been encumbered by unwanted baggage at one time or another. The baggage may be from past sins or failures, broken relationships or shattered dreams—or anything else we allow to weigh us down and impede or progress.

Luggage is symbolic of our availability to go where God sends us. Baggage, in contrast, involves whatever “stuff” is slowing us down from running the race set before us (Hebrews 12:1-2).

If you’re like me, you probably have some baggage you’re not even aware of. Ask God to search your heart, my friend. Lay aside the baggage, and go shopping for some new luggage.