Garbage Over Glory

{Here on Hodiamont}
I was eating eggs looking out my huge front windows that open up to the courtyard below and the parking lot with the dumpster to the side. If I sit in the right spot I can look over all the buildings and just see trees. I can imagine it a quaint little spot in the city. Our apartment is warm, cozy, and inviting. It's easy to just kind of get lost up here. To hear the laughter and voices of children and families below but not actually ever really see them. On this day I was taking time to see them. To watch them. Had someone looked up at me watching them it might have looked a little strange but the Lord was speaking truth to my heart and I could not pry my eyes away.

Behind the overflowing dumpster sat 2 mattresses. Mattresses meant to be picked up with the other trash in the coming days. Trash that’s teeming with bacteria, bugs, and I’m sure rodents of sorts. The dumpster’s sides caked with food remnants, trash from bathroom’s, and unwanted filth. Still, behind this dumpster, just mere feet from it sat these mattresses on the ground. I looked on as children began to come out to play. Where else would they go but to the mattresses. Trampolines, to the children here. Others got out their soccer balls and began kicking them in the middle of the parking lot, having no regard for the vehicles they may hit accidentally. All the while a park lay on the opposite end of the dumpster lot. A park that has play ground equipment to swing on and jump off. A park that has a soccer field with a goal setup. This beautiful park sits right next to the parking lot that the children play in. They’d rather play in the dumpster and cramped spaces than to enjoy the park that’s built for what they actually want to do.

As I stared at them I thought of myself. I too, often choose the dumpster. I choose to jump on the bedbug ridden mattresses rolling around in trash rather than the park that I can see from my squalor. I choose my sin over and over again though God has given me, through Jesus, freedom from the sin that bound me and a direct path to abundant life. I imagine myself jumping on those mattresses and thinking about the green fields I’d want to run in, thinking about the freedom that I want to have if only I could get to the park.

The park is here. The way is clear. I need but to step out of the filth that so easily entangles me. To choose the green grass instead of the trash. To choose the swings instead of the mattresses. To choose life instead of death. The thing is though, that sometimes as disgusting and putrid as this trash is, I just can’t say no. Hallelujah for Yahweh knowing that about me. Knowing that I would choose garbage over glory. So, He placed His very Spirit in me that leads me away from the garbage I desire, to the glory He has destined. Amen and amen for a God who sees and knows me and has provided the way for me.