Treasures and Trash

When Daniel was a little boy, he’d follow the garbage truck through the neighborhood as it stopped at each home on Tuesday morning. The garbage man would jump off the truck, hoist the 50-gallon can of weekly trash onto his shoulder, dump it into the back of the truck, then Daniel would follow to the next house and repeat the process. Many times Daniel would come home with the things others had thrown away; a pocketknife, a chipped coffee cup, or a rusty lock. Trash to others was treasure to Daniel.

Despite being very well paid, there must be a degree of humility in picking up other people’s trash. The garbage man is at work before dawn picking up the rubbish others toss, then drives around all day in unbearable stench. He removes a week’s worth of garbage at a time from each and every house.

In a sense, each week we choose to set ourselves free of burdens in the can we leave at the curb. If only we had a garbage man to come along and pick up our load of worries, unwanted messes, leftover emotional grime, and sin-riddled struggles. If only life’s guilt, regret, and ugly memories could be tossed in a giant plastic bin and left on the side of the street for someone else to remove. If only bitterness and fear were that easily disposed of.

The moment we trust in Jesus, the Father removes all the junk from our lives. All the trash associated with sin is dumped and is replaced with grace, mercy, love, and healing in Him.

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:4-5).

Our sin was set upon Jesus’ shoulders in one great sacrificial act; His blood cleansing us from all unrighteousness once and for all.

The Biggest Changes

The biggest changes in my life are about to occur. These changes will affect not only me, but every member of my immediate and extended family and every friend. It will no longer be possible to keep what I have and have known. Everything I’ve known, been, and worked toward for the past 50 years is about to be altered by events beyond my control.

After 20 years living in my home, I’ve been working hard at downsizing my belongings over the past few weeks. While I’ve seldom used or even remembered that some of these things exist, there are multitudes of memories attached to them. Every item is carefully considered before adding it to a box for charity, for Ebay, for the trash man, or for storage.

Buried in a box of vitally important things, I found a 30-year old cassette tape of my mentor singing and playing the piano; another of a sermon he preached for me. Emotions washed over me at the discovery, but I don’t know where to find a cassette player anymore. The memories are still locked here in my mind, even without the cassette tapes.

I’ve repeatedly reminded myself that the value of my life isn’t determined by the things I have or had. Things may elicit memories, but the things aren’t the memories. Nor do the things define who I am or the value of my life past, present, or future.

The days ahead will be difficult in many ways with challenges yet unseen, but the clarity of an emptier house is a fitting picture of my renewed clarity of purpose and life.

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12).

Our Batmobile

When Daniel was younger, he took up the hobby of building model cars. You know the kind. They’re made of molded plastic parts which you painstakingly glue together. His last project was the Batmobile from the 1960s television program. I … he … worked for hours putting the thing together and then painting it. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to make a young boy think his father could do anything.

A few months ago, Daniel was cleaning his room and produced a box of things for me to throw into the trash. I decided to sort through the box and find some items which might be donated to charity rather than go to the city dump. Among the items in his box was the Batmobile we’d built years before. I was crushed. He’d intended it for the trash heap.

It didn’t have the meaning to him that it had to me. For me, it was something we had built together; for Daniel, it was an old toy that he had no interest in. It was his, so I let him do what he wanted with his things.

Here is a difficult truth: This universe, and everything in it, belongs to the God who created it and upholds it. Your god-complex deludes you into thinking that certain things belong to you and that it’s your right to decide what comes and goes, what is “good” and “bad”, and what is and isn’t proper for your life. You may have a god-complex, but that doesn’t make you God.

O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? (Romans 9:20-21).