Trash Run

You can tell a lot about people from their trash. Trash is sort of personal. It comes from within your house and what you chose to put in your trash is sometimes leftover personal stuff. I love the old saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure". How true is that for us scavengers who comb the garage and estate sales every week as if it were therapy. Searching for that one nugget at a reasonable price that someone doesn't want anymore, but you can put it to good use or find a home for it and bring it back to life. It almost feels like a rescue mission that obsesses the mind until the one item that is calling you finally reaches its resting place in your hands. This picture is of an old doctors cabinet I rescued from a estate sale that was priced at $1. It was in someone's garage and they actually ran into it with a car. The door was dented and did not open and the drawer was rusted shut. I brought it home not knowing what I would do with it and it sat in my yard for ooooo about 3 years. I would use it for parties and throw a table cloth over it and whala instant table for ice and drinks. I had also a section of our countertop where the cooktop was cut out reserved and it too had been sitting in my yard for 8 years. I then realized I could marry the two, so I faux painted the cabinet to look sort of leathery/patina and put the granite piece on it. I turned it around so you could not see the door and it looks great out there and is perfect for setting stuff on we are grilling. Recently, with economics the way they have been, I have cut way back on my junking. I have found that my mind wonders about what I am missing out on at those sales. Now that I have missed about 6 months worth I don't obsess as much about them. it is a favorite past time even if I don't find anything the hunt is what is exciting, the competetive nature in me to get there first, and the quandry of will I find something.
I have been running and training for this half marathon in Dec. so when I run I can not run past trash on the side of the road. It is like it jumps up from the ground saying pick me up, pick me up please. I run along with cups, smashed beer cans and paper and find a nice neighbor who will allow me to deposit my finds into their recepticle. I then start over until my hands can hold no more. I will not pick up glass for obvious reasons. This sort of trash calls out to me almost as much as the trash I find at sales. I do it cause it bugs me that people can throw their biggy sized styrofoam cups out their windows without even a thought, but I think there is another reason. There is a commercial on television that shows people helping one another and how it is passed on just by people seeing the other person doing the good deed until it comes full circle back to the original person who started the good deeds. I think I am hoping someone will see me picking up the trash and want to follow suit. I am not looking for the recongnition just wanting them to see me do it. Weird, but true. It shouldn't matter, but performance based gratification sometimes gets the best of me. I want to do it cause I want cleaner streets. I need to do it cause it satisfies this urge in me like a calling.
I reckon God is like that. It says in John 4:23 "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks". He is looking for me like I look for trash. He is looking to and fro to seek out the true worshipers, who call Him by name, who seek Him in all they do, who worship Him and no other. This is my heart. That in everything I do it would come from a place of worship. It would come from a sense of urgency to complete, stay on task and fulfill. He tells us He will complete the work He has begun in us so I am standing on His promise and waiting in wonder for His next move. Isn't it just like God to bring us together with Him, just like my table and countertop, in His perfect timing. Even when we have know idea what God may be doing in our lives we trust Him anyway. Just like I bought the cabinet not really knowing what I would do with it, but then bam figured it out.....sometimes it takes us a while, but God never leaves us or forsakes us. EVER. I pray I would be so compelled I would stop at nothing to help, to pray, to sing, to serve, to worship, to give and edify. My eyes are not always fixed on the Lord and often times they are fixed on the trash. God is so wonderful that even though we are broken, even though we must look like trash to Him we are His treasure. I am so thankful He sees me as His treasure even when I have felt like trash. So unworthy to call out His name, but by His grace He has given me access into the throne room of mercy, leading me out of the miry pit, rescuing me from the biggest dumpster of circumstances and loving me in my biggy syrofoam self. Thank you Jesus that you call me out from the pile of trash and crown me with righteousness though I am covered in filth.