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.
