"When Not to Recycle"

“When Not to Recycle”

 

One of the godly leaders in our first church in the Finger Lakes region of New York was a retired plumber and general “Mr. Fix-it” around town. He had a three-bay garage with a full walk-out lower level. There was room for his pick-up truck but the rest of the building was filled with odds and ends from every conceivable trade. (His wife inwardly groaned whenever he went to the local dump as she knew he was likely to come home with his truck fuller than when he left.) The townspeople chuckled at his accumulation of “junk” but they also knew where they could find what they needed for a project or repair. He was the classic illustration of “One man’s trash is the next man’s treasure.” I guess he was a recycler before it was in vogue.

Recycling plastic, metal, and other items is a good practice to conserve resources for future generations. Our present city provides each home with a receptacle to make it easy to do, as evidenced by the blue containers lined up along the streets in our community on Monday mornings. I believe it’s also good stewardship of what God has made and provided for us.

While recycling is a good thing there’s one area in which “picking the dump” is to be avoided: our past sin, failures, and difficult experiences. Our tendency can be to relive these events leading to self-pity, negativity, and self-condemnation. To be sure, there are valuable lessons to be learned by looking back (“…Everything that was written [in the Scriptures] was written to teach us….”—Romans 15:4) but we can’t so dwell on the past that we live in fear of the future. The Apostle Paul put it this way: “…I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead….” (Philippians 3:13, NLT). He knew that (revisionist history notwithstanding) he couldn’t change his past as an enemy of Christ but he poured even greater effort into his service for Him (“I work very hard at this, as I depend on Christ’s mighty power that works within me.”--Colossians 1:29, NLT).

So let’s keep on recycling those bottles and cans, but stop “picking the dump” of what needs to be left buried at the foot of the cross.

 

Blessings!

Jim McMillan