Tuesday, January 26, 2016

STINKY THINGS AND BEAUTIFUL MUSIC


 
Here’s a pretty picture to jump start your week -- a humongous landfill! Probably full of stinky fishbones, and diapers, and rusted metal, plastic, warped shoes, bubble wrap, and ... well, you get the idea. Makes you wanna sing, doesn’t it? That’s why I go visit landfills, to be inspired with ideas for the Broadway musical screenplay I plan to write someday.
A few months ago, I watched a documentary about slum children in Paraguay. Some genius musician went to the local dump site, pulled out ooky discarded objects, and fashioned musical instruments. The children were taught to play, and a band was formed. Lives were changed, both the children’s and those who watched and listened to them play.
In pondering that rancid pile of trash, I had an invigorating thought -- that used to be me. And now you’re thinking, “How offensive! How dare anyone say they’re trash, God doesn’t make trash! I am certainly not trash!”
Well, I partly agree. “In the beginning ...” God did not create trash. He created perfection. However, due to the infamous Adam/Eve fiasco, all subsequent generations were born spiritually dead ... and stinky. How do I know this? Well, my creator God told me so. I was “dead in trespasses and sin” (Ephesians 2:1). My heart “is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9). I was once unrighteous, unable to inherit the kingdom of God, due to my sin (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Yes indeed, I was born into a spiritual landfill, ...
But God! When I was dead, He made me alive, pulled me out of the sin-landfill, raised me up with Christ, and seated me with Him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:5-6; Colossians 2:13). I’m included with all other refurbished sinners, part of the Lord’s well-designed plan. How wonderful to know that God uses the “dead” and foolish and weak, to set into the Body. The disciples were only uneducated fishermen, but they had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13) and were changed.

 
My Father, how truly awestruck I am when I consider that I was born spiritual garbage, but you washed, sanctified, and justified me in the name of my Jesus and in the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:11). You did that with me, and for me, so that I would be made useful. In Your hands, with Your Spirit, because of Your Son, I am a chosen instrument to play Your “music,” for Your glory and Your purpose. I could not feel more blessed!

6 comments:

  1. I'm impressed that you are writing a screenplay! That must be hard work!

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  2. Sorry for misleading you. I have a tendency to ... lie ... in stories. Small/big exaggerations are my personal entertainment. :-)

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  3. You are so correct he did not create a garbage we made it that way or someone else did. I saw the same sort of documentary of the children living in the slums. I work as a nurse aide and as I washed a lady's feet (she suffers from mental illness) I heard her tell a person inside of her that this one washes feet as well. I do not know where it came from but told her that my Lord Jesus also washes feet and if it was not beneath him it definitely is not below me.

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  4. I'm so blessed that God chose to love me! What an encouragement!

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  5. Our flesh would like us to think more highly than we ought, one of the evidences of the truth of the Bible. Thankful that our God is a God of miracles and transformations. Thanks for visiting my blog, Peggy

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