I’ve slowly been
digging through a bunch of boxes and bins I put in storage in my mom’s
basement, and while I have yet to find what I was looking for, I did strike
some gold. I stumbled across an old
journal. Now, how my journal got in the
basement, I have no idea because I usually keep a good watch over those little
books that allow me to express myself and become utterly and completely naked
and exposed to no one but me and God. Either way, there it was. My Thoughts.
Some of it written so eloquently, and some of it written in the roughest
of nights (I could tell from the handwritingJ). It was intriguing to read and glance and
peruse. So what does that have to do
with what I’m sharing today? Sometimes,
do you find yourself stumbling upon things that others would consider junk, but
to you it’s something that has more value than anyone would ever know?
Trash! Apparently, I just got tuned in to this thing
called dumpster diving. I had heard of
it before, but it’s still for me this new phenomenon that people participate in
every day. But I thought it translated
into a good analogy. Trash is to the dumpster what Christ is to us. We define trash as something worth little or
nothing; something that has no value. When
we think about the dumpster, we think of it as a place to put our trash. Nothing more, nothing less. It is simply the receptacle of all of our
unwanted things. These things could be anything
from food, clothing, furniture, household items, and a host of other things.
Physically, a
dumpster is dirty, nasty, unclean, grimy, contaminated, has an unpleasant smell,
and has a high quantity of disease, insects, and rats. So needless to say, for me when I place
something inside the trash, later to be transported to a dumpster it has no
value, no treasure is seen. However,
according to dumpster diving, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. I’ve heard this phrase used millions of
times, but never did I think that literally people would spend their lives to
go diving in random contaminated dumpsters seeking treasure. There are those (some of us) who look at a
dumpster and see it as a place to discover treasure. These people are those like my Uncle Charles
who always finds the most random items, in places many of us would never consider
to go in hopes of finding something of value. These people are dumpster
divers. They believe that they can find
items of value in the most unexpected places.
The bible is an
example of where we find many people that stumbled and found God in unexpected
places. In fact, the bible is literally
the story of how God unexpectedly breaks into the lives of His people. How has God unexpectedly broken into your
life??
For example, Mary
in Luke 1:26
In the sixth month,
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged
to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name
was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly
favored! The Lord is with you."
Mary was greatly
troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the
angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.
You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you're to give him the name
Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord
God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the
house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
"How will this
be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel
answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of
God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and
she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with
God."
"I am the Lord's
servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said."
Then the angel left her.
Whatever Mary
was doing that day, she certainly did not expect to be confronted with
a messenger from heaven. And her
response to Gabriel, “May it be to me as you have said" is where
Mary accepted the unexpected.
Unexpectedly. Unexplainably
pregnant. Mary is willing to put aside
her uncertainties and worries and say yes to God.
Another example,
Jacob in Genesis 28:10
Jacob left Beersheba and set out for
Harran. When he reached a
certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of
the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in
which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven,
and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it
stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of
your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants
the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust
of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north
and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your
offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go,
and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done
what I have promised you.”
When Jacob awoke
from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this
place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is
this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the
gate of heaven.”
Early the next
morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a
pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the
city used to be called Luz.
Then Jacob made
a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I
am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s
household, then the Lord will be my God and this
stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you
give me I will give you a tenth.”
What a dream
Jacob had that night. With the ground for
his bed and the rock for a pillow turned out to be an amazing blessing. We know God planned
this stop for Jacob and that He also has an itinerary for us; a journey too to
take us on and it too can be unexplainably and unexpectedly. Jacob had a lot to
learn about God and so do we. Sometimes God takes us through things that aren’t
of our own choosing and it may include a stay or two at our own personal hard rock
hotel. He arranges stops into our lives just like He did Jacob, and for the
same purpose. He’s teaching us to depend on Him.
Sometimes we just simply go through the motions and we
miss the amazing ways that God is working in our lives. Are we creating places
where God will do incredible things in our lives? Are we finding the place
where he is and joining Him there? When God
looks for someone to accomplish His purposes on earth, what kind of man or
woman is He looking for? Are you that
man or woman?
If you think about some of the heroes of the Bible – men and
women like Mary, Jacob, Moses, Gideon and Esther – they weren’t cardboard
cutouts; they put their sandals on one at a time like the rest of us. They were
human like you and I. So God uses
ordinary people. That’s the way it was
with David, who became Israel’s most renowned king. He was deeply committed to God. He had a deep hunger for God and a strong
commitment. Paul too had one solid
objective. “One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching
forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize
of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
Mary of Bethany, as she sat at Jesus’ feet knew the true purpose
and her sister Martha in contrast did not.
Luke 10:40 “But Martha [overly occupied and too busy] was distracted with much
serving; and she came up to Him and said, Lord, is it nothing to You that my
sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me [to lend a hand and
do her part along with me]! But the Lord replied to her
by saying, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things;
There is need of only one or but a few things.
Mary has chosen the good portion [that which is to her advantage], which shall
not be taken away from her.”
Keep your eyes open; you never know where God is going to
show up next…it may just be the dumpster so get ready to dive in.
Be Blessed
-Tracy
