Pick up the trash...

This weekend in Barrie was the annual Spring Into Clean event, where hundreds of dedicated citizens grab yellow garbage bags and pick up trash all over the city.

It got me thinking about something pretty spiritually deep.  I hope you can track along with me on this one.

Our cities and side roads are wonderful places of scenic beauty.  All it takes is a stroll along a trail or ride on a bike path to realize that we live in a spectacular area.  The problem is that, through carelessness, people who live in the very place they enjoy, cause it to become littered with garbage.  The very thing we walk and drive through every day becomes less attractive by the refuse WE dump there without thinking!

Can you picture this?  "Ya, come to Barrie...(munch munch)...this is a great place...(munch munch)...so beautiful...(chew chew...swallow)..."  Then the person tosses an empty donut bag out the window of the car!  Everything you just said gets forgotten.

Just as unbelievable as that seems, we do it to OURSELVES to!

I've always believed that the Gospel, the good news, when presented properly is the most attractive message on earth.  Jesus believed this and had the crowds to prove it.  Who can say no to a God who loves you so much, nothing stood in His way to make sure you could have a relationship with you?  It's attractive!

As a believer in Christ, YOU are attractive, you are beautiful!  Why?  Because you have been lifted from a load of guilt, shame and pain!  You have access to joy that nothing in the world can give you! You can have little or you can have much, it does not matter, the joy is the same.

BUT...

There are times when we can allow our own beautiful landscape of New Life get littered.

We toss out the empty coffee cup of a bad attitude.

We casually drop the cigarette wrapper of malicious gossip.

We can even dump the trash can of entitlement!

All of these things litter an otherwise attractive landscape of a Godly Christian life!  It's there underneath the garbage but it's up to us to pick up the debris so others can look and see the wonderful work of the Master Gardener! 

Well, maybe this is too deep for a Monday morning, but it's got me thinking.  I've been picking up some of the spiritual trash that has been in my heart for too long now.

That's the other danger of not picking up the litter;  you can just get used to seeing it there and you don't realize how disgusting it looks!  It reminds me of every episode of "Hoarders".

Take a moment today and grab a trash bag and do a walk through of your heart.  If you see a LOT of junk, don't worry, we are in this together and we can all pitch in to help!

You are a beautiful landscape of grace!

(Whoa! Did I just say that?)