Leave Your Baggage At The Door?

Have you ever been in a church service where the challenge was given to "leave your baggage at the door"? The idea is that whatever you've been going through, whatever's weighing you down, leave it outside, because we're not here to worry about our problems, but to focus on Jesus. I've used the metaphor before myself.

I've been chewing on this concept lately. I'm wondering if, however, it's not really a challenge to help people to focus on Jesus, but one that is in some way selfish. Is it possible that it's really a way of saying, in essence, "Leave your stuff at the door, put on the facade, mask your problems and your pain ... so that we don't have to see the real you and deal with your real pain."

Is not the call of Jesus to come to him with our stuff - to bring our problems right into his lap? "Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). Jesus didn't say, "Leave your problems at the door, then come see me." Or, as I like to say, Jesus didn't say, "Clean up then come up." He said, "Come up, and I'll clean you up." And isn't the Church the body of Christ on earth? And if that's true, should we not invite and welcome to come on in, baggage and all? Is that not the path to healing and restoration? It's messy. It's harder. It's the cross.

Check out these two video clips. If you have time to watch them in their entirety, they're powerful and inspirational! If you just have a few minutes, just watch 6:20-7:08 and 10:37-11:00 of the first video, and 2:50-6:08 of the second one.

Thoughts? Comments? (By the way, please write your name if you don't have a Blogger account.) Enjoy!