From Garbage to Usefulness
My mother when she was alive, lived in Gympie with my stepfather. Their house was opposite the town’s garbage dump, and boy did it smell in summer - despite their best efforts to cover the dumped garbage with landfill as soon as the rubbish truck had emptied its contents. Now you may well ask, why was there a garbage dump so close to houses? The reason? - it was a very low area of town going to waste, because of the continuous threat of floodwaters. And so after many years of noise, smell and dust, the Council declared the waste depot full - much to the delight of all those who lived nearby!
Of course if you travel past the house now (my step-father still lives there) you won’t see any trace of the rubbish dump, nor be plagued by the smell or bothered by hundreds of flies. Why? Because the area has been turned into a series of sporting ovals and a rest stop/park area for the locals as well as the travelers passing through. You would be amazed at the transformation. Here the local council with the help of many workers, made something very useful out of garbage. And you know, there is One who created all things, the earth and all the galaxies, and He is an even greater genius at making something useful out of garbage.
Let me illustrate. I want you to look at Psalm 51 in the Bible. It's a very, very touching psalm, because the time of his life at which David is writing it. He has sinned the great sin of adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his most loyal soldiers. He's then arranged for the murder at the battle front of this most loyal soldier – Bathsheba’s husband. And we now find him in the very presence of his Lord, repenting and seeking forgiveness.
I guess if I were to title this psalm it might be called David at the Dump, because he's really facing a garbage situation – the garbage of his life. Listen to some excerpts from this psalm. "Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways and sinners will turn back to You."
David knows where to begin in cleaning up the garbage of his life, and sets a pattern that we could well follow. David acknowledges the ugliness, the filth and the bad smell of the garbage. And he says, "Now, Lord, I'm counting on You. Please clean it up; give me a new kind of purity. And then give me a determined, steadfast spirit not to go back to this garbage dump again, but to live a life pleasing to You. I've learned from this, God. I'm not going to make these mistakes again. And give me back my joy better than ever."
And notice the result. Because God not only forgave David his sin - got rid of the garbage, but also made something beautiful out of his life once again. See what our Lord enabled David to do after covering the garbage - never to be seen again. David promised: "I will teach transgressors Your ways and sinners will turn back to You." What a pretty exciting concept we come across here! God not only took away the garbage of a sin-scarred life, but converted it into credentials of His grace. David was going to teach people about the grace of God, and call them to leave their “rubbish dump” lives, to repent of their sins, and turn to follow God’s way of salvation.
The same happened to the Apostle Paul. As Saul of Tarsus, he imprisoned Christians, he murdered them. His violent past later, though, opened many doors when he came to people and they said, "Woah! You mean you are a follower of Christ?" God turned that garbage into something very useful. It opened doors; it opened hearts. How many times I've heard people say, "You know, after what I've been through, I wouldn't want to go through it again, and I wouldn't want anyone else to. But I can have a ministry to people who are where I was."
Perhaps you've been a victim of sin. I think of Joan who was abused by her father. But she has resolved that relationship; she's learned to forgive and love him, and this lady is having an amazing ministry to people who were sinned against in the same way. Now, that's not an excuse to play in the garbage dump. It's far better never to have been there. Just ask anyone who's been there. But if there's garbage in your past, bring it to the Lord Jesus--to the cross where He paid for it all. Let Him forgive you. Let Him clean you up. And most miraculously, then use the junk of your past for His glory and the good of many others.
See, only Jesus could do this. It took His death on the cross to beat the power and the penalty of our sin that He can now offer us forgiveness and strength to turn our past into an incredible future. This could be the day that you could leave all the sin, and all the junk, all the garbage of a lifetime, at His cross. You can say, "Jesus, forgive me. I believe You died for me. Make me Yours." The power of Christ is so great that it reaches even to the garbage dumps of our lives and turns trash into treasure. Like the song writer said, "All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife, but He made something beautiful out of my life."
And of course if you have experienced the garbage to treasure transformation, what better plan than to use your beautiful life, to tell others about Jesus, so they would know the Lord’s forgiveness, joy and love? Grace and peace...