Every Night Is Trash Night For God’s Children

by Kevin Burton

    The trash company changed our trash night a couple of weeks ago. That put some unwelcomed wrinkles into our routine.

   Trash night used to be Sunday night/Monday morning.  Now it is Monday night/Tuesday morning.

   There is just enough time between the end of the 3:30 NFL game and the beginning of the Sunday night game to get the cat litter changed and taken out. I don’t want that task moved because Monday is many ways is the beginning of a new week. With a fresh week our house should smell its best Monday morning!

   Sunday night has been decision time for those leftovers, use them or lose them. Technically that could be Monday night now but somehow it doesn’t feel right.

   The actual taking of the trash and recycling barrels to the curb however, fits nicely into halftime of the Monday Night game. So that works going forward.

   Though the air may be sweeter in a house where old cat litter has been removed, there can be a sour smell left behind, if I haven’t removed all the trash.

   There is trash in my life and yours that has nothing to do with egg shells and orange peels, no?

   We’re talking spiritual trash.

   What is trash anyway? It is things that were useful but no longer are, including some that smell bad. Good things that we dropped on a dirty floor and therefore need to go.  It is the packaging of good things that has served its limited purpose and now needs to go.

   Sometimes it is things I thought might be useful but never truly were.

   All these things are present physically in our homes but they have a spiritual equivalent.

   Are there not attitudes that have hardened over time? Bad habits that obviously need to go? Benign habits that are taking up space, wasting time that should be spent on God’s work?

   Timothy Vanderpool, writing on themondaychristian.com, says we can appear to others to be clean spiritually when we are not. He calls it “the illusion of clean.”

   “We can get good at appearing clean. We tidy up the visible parts and curate what people see. We get so used to managing our trash that we forget we’re still accumulating it,” Vanderpool writes.

  “1 John 1:8 addresses this illusion: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”

   “We might think, I’m doing pretty well. Things look clean on the outside. But sin doesn’t always shout. Sometimes it settles—quietly, slowly—in the corners of our hearts. Resentment. Pride. Hidden habits. Quiet compromises.”

   “It’s possible to go a long time without noticing the trash. Eventually, though, something surfaces. A reaction we didn’t expect. A painful word. A spiritual dryness we can’t explain. We catch a whiff and realize our trash is full.”

   “Confession is that moment when we stop pretending our trash doesn’t exist. We stop acting like things are fine and admit that something’s not right.”

   “It’s uncomfortable. It’s humbling,” Vanderpool writes. “But it’s also incredibly freeing. Because on the heels of 1 John 1:8 (where we’re told that no one is without sin) a redemptive promise is made: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

   “Confession is like wheeling our trash out to the curb. We bring it to God. We acknowledge what’s truly there, without pretending or hiding. And he, in turn, forgives our sin. He looks at our trash and says, “I still love you.”

   “But he doesn’t stop there. Then he does the work of taking our trash away.”

   And here’s a new take on confession/repentance from Vanderpool’s young son.

   “My two-year-old son is obsessed with the garbage truck. Every week, when he hears it rumble down the street, he yells, ‘Dump truck!’ (We don’t correct him) and bolts for the window. He stands in rapt attention, watching as the big mechanical arm lifts each can, dumps it, and moves to the next house.”

   “If my wife or I are anywhere within reach, he grabs our hands so we join him. He never gets tired of seeing the trash get taken away. And he wants to share in the phenomenon with everyone he can.”

   “What if we approached confession with the same wonder?”

   “What if taking out the trash wasn’t a burden, but a chance to celebrate? A moment to say, ‘Thank God he still comes.’ A weekly rhythm of spiritual honesty, grace, and renewal.

   “You may be holding onto things you think disqualify you,” Vanderpool writes. “You may have trash bags of failure stashed behind emotionally closed doors. But God isn’t waiting for you to clean yourself up. He’s waiting for you to be honest with him. To take your trash to the curb.”

   “So bring it to him. Confess the things you’ve buried, the trash you’ve ignored. And when you do, take a moment to stop. Listen for the garbage truck.”

   “And celebrate his faithfulness.”

   Even better fellow Christians; any night and every night can be trash night when needed. He is always there for us.