I wear a key around my neck. In fact, I have several different key necklaces. One says faith. One says dream wild. One says create. Some are silver. Some are black. Some are cooper.

Call it a prophetic thing… I started wearing necklaces when I got the Isaiah 22:22 revelation: “Then I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder, when he opens no one will shut, when he shuts no one will open.”

In the realm of prayer, we use the Isaiah 22:22 key with governmental authority to unlock doors God prophetically shows us to open for His glory and to lock doors He wants locked to the enemy. As ambassadors for Christ, this is one strategy for waging prophetic warfare and legislating in the spirit.

Carrying Too Many Keys

Last week I received a new revelation while relocating to a new home. As part of taking possession of the property, I got three new keys for my ring and used one of them to turn the lock on a 7-foot door. When I opened this God-given door, I walked into my dream loft in an urban city with artists, photographers, and organic coffee surrounding my abode.

As I worked diligently to unpack boxes, I noticed my friend had a key ring with no more than three keys. That struck me as my keyring had no less than 18 keys on it. Beyond the three new keys to my home, I have P.O. Box keys, car keys, church keys, and a slew of other keys. These keys was so heavy it l literally weighed down my bags.

I declared in that moment I would winnow down my key chain. I ended up with six keys. Honestly, I couldn’t even remember what most of the other keys were for. If I was on a game show and the host asked which key went in what door I would have surely lost the competition.

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Putting Away Old Keys

Here’s the lesson: Many of us are holding on to keys from doors of the past that are not only closed—the locks have been changed. We’re toting around a ring with keys to doors we long forgot about. Somehow, we closed the door and kept the keys—and those keys are weighing us down.

Hebrews 1:2 admonishes us, “Let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

We can’t run our race with endurance if we don’t forget what lies behind—the closed doors, the failed relationships, the trials of life. We can’t sprint around the track God has laid out without wearing ourselves out if we don’t let go of the heavy weights the enemy wants us to carry.

Stripping my key chain of these superfluous keys to doors of the past was like letting go of a heavy load—and not just out of my bag but off my mind. It was a prophetic act that parallels Philippians 3:13-14:

“Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Jennifer LeClaire former editor of Charisma magazine, senior leader of Awakening House of Prayer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, founder of the Ignite Network and founder of the Awakening Blaze prayer movement. She is author of over 25 books. Find her online at jenniferleclaire.org or email her at info@jenniferleclaire.org.