This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.2nd Corinthians 5:17-18, NLT
First, let me write this disclaimer. No, I am not an environmentalist freak. I'm not trying to persuade you one way or the other. I'm just going to share something pretty cool that I believe God showed me, but I need to tell you the first part of the story to make the connection.
Sometime in the last few years, one of my kids showed me an email (or youtube video) about thousands and thousands of plastic water bottles that were in a garbage landfill instead of a recycling center. It made an impression on me, so I started bagging plastics for recycle; you know the drill - water bottles, laundry detergent bottles, milk jugs. I thought it would be a very simple process. Bag the recyclables - put them out for the truck.
However, my little town doesn't offer blue recycling bins with a truck pickup. They have a recycling center by the municipal complex. That meant I would have to bag them, put them in the trunk and take them to the recycling center on the day it was open. Okay, that was a little more involved than I'd planned to be, but I kept remembering those thousands and thousands of plastic water bottles and I knew I needed to do it... So, I loaded it into the car, and drove to the center only to find that it was closed due to some unforeseen circumstance. I have to admit, I was a little put-out by that, so, I drove back home and unloaded it into the garage because I was not taking it back into the laundry room. And there it became out-of-sight-out-of-mind. Oh, I continued bagging more of it, but I would haul it out to the garage, and toss it in, and try not to see how much of it was already in there because I didn't want to take the time to fight the cobwebs, etc, in a dirt floor garage. (and there's a LOT of etc in a Texas dirt floor garage...) Nor did I want to put that into my car until finally, I had bagged up enough that I needed help to get it there...
I also learned that you don't just throw all the recyclables in one recycle bin. There's #1 and #2 plastic, clear glass, brown glass, blue or green glass, aluminum cans are different than tin cans, cardboard, newspaper and magazines, white paper, and so on and so forth. The first trip was a real eye-opener and overwhelming to boot because I had not separated anything; it was all in the same bag - plastic, glass, aluminum cans. Getting it into the right bins was so much fun...NOT! That was WA-A-AYYYY more than I bargained for when I first made the decision to recycle. I would have to re-think this whole commitment. It would be so much easier and certainly less time-consuming, not to mention more space in the laundry room, just to throw it all in the trash... but I kept remembering those thousands and thousands of plastic water bottles.
Well, I've learned how to do it. In the laundry room, I have the calendar posted with the recycling center's hours. I have a separate bag for each of the types of items I recycle and when one bag is full, I put all of the bags in the trunk and take it to the recycling center on the day it is open. I have days when I don't want to fool with it and would just like to throw it away and not be bothered with the time it takes, but in my mind, I see those thousands and thousands of plastic water bottles... So, I take the time because it's not about me. Recycling has become a normal part of the day because I have chosen for it to be that way.
Now, I look for things I use that can be recycled, and it was in the process of checking an item that I believe God showed me the analogy. We come to salvation because we heard or saw something that led us to Calvary and what Christ did for us on the Cross. It made an impression, so we think we'd better get ourselves to church. Well, the next thing you know, it's not just church on Sunday, it's a mid-week service, too, and then they're talking about being baptized, and reading your Bible every day, with all the thou shalt and thou shalt nots, depending on which translation of the Bible you read - and which one should you read? And does it matter? It's overwhelming, and you think, this is WA-A-AYYY more than I signed up for... And you want to walk away because it would be so much easier to just go back to sleeping late on Sunday and not feeling bad about what you did or didn't do regarding decisions that never used to give you a moment's pause... but then you remember the Cross at Calvary and how Jesus laid down His life for you and you realize it's not just about you...
You may think there's too much in your life that needs to be changed - you'll never get it all right. You got all this stuff and no way to straighten it all out. Well... you just need a little help to get it all separated in manageable pieces, that's all. Maybe you WILL join that small group they mentioned so you could learn how to do this or do it better... Take a little time each day to read your Bible, learn about it and put it into practice until it becomes a normal part of your day. Will there be days you want to give up? Probably... but then you go back to what took place at Calvary - Jesus on that Cross for our sin... And all those things that were so overwhelming at the beginning? You'll find yourself taking them, one by one, to God and asking, What can You do with this? Our God has a very sweet way of taking what we've used or done and making good come of it.
Prayer:
Father,
Thank You for the Cross. Thank You for taking our old lives and making them new. Continue to teach us about bringing our stuff to You, so You can turn it for good use. Open our eyes to see that it's not just about us and what we want. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen
