Our Trash Runneth Over

Our trash runneth over.

So does our ‘recycling’. 

It doesn’t help that we put the wrong bin out a couple weeks ago, so confused were we with their holiday schedule. Then when we rectified that Friday and had the recycling out, it was left pretty full because we had mistakenly filled it with plastic sheeting and polystyrene packaging which, it turns out, is not recyclable.

Today the ‘bin lorry’ should resume the usual schedule so we are hopeful that the trash bin, which doth really runneth over, shall be emptied some time during this beautiful day.

Stuff accumulates in a modern life which clutters and clogs and hampers forward movement. Sometimes it can be passed on, reused and given a second life; other times there is nothing for it but to send it to the tip.

Sometimes stuff becomes central to our thinking, elbowing out positive thoughts and leaving no room for progress in our lives. We get bogged down and lose focus, distracted and anxious.

Jesus counsels us to keep it simple. Not to worry about what we have or don’t have, or even what we need or don’t need. He advises to take one day at a time and focus on what really matters.

We have started this year, as we have many years, with a resolve to declutter. May 2017 be a year of less stuff, leaving more room in our minds and hearts to focus on what really matters.

God's Grand Recycling Scheme

A simply glorious morning. I sat down to write this but felt compelled to abandon it for a bracing walk round the woods. A walk I did once, twice a day with Dusty but have since abandoned, to my loss.

I passed the towering dung pile the farmer has dumped as he’s cleaned his barns through the winter. Rotting into something wonderful.

I returned home, praising the Lord for his gifts and the beauty of this day, and took the kitchen garbage round to the compost bin. In it went – a small hill of coffee grounds, tangerine skins, potato peelings, onion skin. And then I passed the pile of rotted compost which Don recently moved from the compost heap to the garden. We left it longer this time, maybe a year, and the result in terms of tilth and richness and well-rottedness is evident. Whether or not that will result in a marvellous veggie crop next summer remains to be seen ...

I heard some teaching last night in which the woman declared that our history is part of our destiny. Our past is what makes us who we are today. Our shames keep us humble. Our hurts give us compassion. We may want to erase some memories but God uses them all to bring a fresh crop of righteousness from the gardens of acquaintances and friends where we live. 

There are some memories I’d like to delete. Some things I’d like to have not done. They continue to sit in a big towering pile of dung. One day it will have rotted into something wonderful which will feed the faith of someone else. 

It’s a transformation beyond my imagination, but within my mustard seed of faith. From dung to pure gold. But then, the dazzling diamond comes from the hardest-pressed coal which has had time. Time. 

Your sins are forgiven, Jesus told the woman caught in adultery and the man paralysed by disease. Your sins are forgiven, and in God’s amazing recycling scheme, they are transformed into something beautiful.

Amazement. Humility. Overwhelming gratitude. Awe and wonder. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is everlasting life in his perfect son Jesus Christ. 

A day like today, clear and still after days of stormy winds, encourages me to breathe deep the forgiveness and love of God, and be thankful. Forever thankful. Those he has forgiven much, love much.