A Trash Bag Conundrum

Living in a first world country presents a lot of advantages. As a person who enjoys order and cleanliness I appreciate all of them. I read the Levitical laws on how to maintain a wilderness camo and had the sudden urge to dust my entire house. After every run and hike I thank God for clean water to be able to de-grime. One thing that plucks my penny pinching nerves, however, is trash bags.

It should not be a five minute decision making process every few months to conclude with buying the exact same product I’ve been purchasing. Toilet paper is the same agony. Why do I let trash bags ruffle my frugal feathers? Because I’m buying these for the sole purpose of throwing them away. This is literally throwing money away. And the companies that produce the product know modern society needs them so the price is not always budget friendly.

I’ve taken my bag to the bin, the bin to the curb, and then come in the house only to forget to replace the bag in the can. Inevitably I will toss something into the unlined can. This is always the A HA moment when I’m grateful for trash bags. Without that simple item disposal of unwanted things is chaotic and messy. the cost of containment is now willingly paid.

In the book of First Samuel chapter two there is definitely some trash that needs taken out. The priest Eli has two sons, Hophni and Phineas. The Bible says they were “worthless men. They did not know the Lord.” Their actions reveal their hearts. They take the choice morsels of the sacrifice for themselves and they sleep with the serving women at the entrance of the tent of meeting. The brothers are behaving like the pagan priests and using the name of the Lord.

God has enough. He sends a prophet to Eli. The basic message: because you would not stand up and be a good father the Heavenly Father will do away with your generations. Modern Christianity has Good Father as someone with a smile. A gift giver. Someone who makes life easy for his children. We like this person. It’s who we are. (It’s who we are. It’s who we are. It’s who we are.) And while those things are certainly true, they are not the sum total of a good father.

Proverbs 3:12 For who the Lord loves, He reproves. Even as a father corrects the son in who he delights.

Hebrews 12:9 Moreover we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live?

I should be pointed out that not everyone has an awesome godly earthly father. That is not an excuse to reject God as Heavenly Father. It should be a propellant towards Him. Why? It’s not about you. It’s not about me.

The discipline of God is not abuse. The value of His correction outweighs the burden of our pride. The trash of bad behavior has got to go. Our sin was paid for on the cross. It isn’t that I was worth so much, it was that Jesus was willing to pay so much.

God always has a plan. With Eli and the boys making a mockery of His temple God calls Samuel. The Bible says “And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.” Shiloh means “peace”. God returned at peace once His house was clean. Was Eli still there? Yes, but he and his filthy family were already spiritually replaced. God set up the spiritual and the natural followed through.

When I take my bin to the curb I technically still have that trash. I could walk out and bring it all back into the house. I could open the bags and place the rotten refuse in different rooms of my house. I could happily proclaim, “I do not need a garbage truck!” Except if any of that stuff had value I would have kept it in the first place. It was thrown out for a reason. It no longer contained life. A guest in my house seeing piles of trash would certainly be alarmed. Even more so if my pride in my trash outweighed my responsibility to the upkeep of my house. Too many people are currently declaring they do not need a Savior. It should break every believers heart.

The Holy Spirit is so loving with guiding us in throwing out the trash of our sin. Repentance is not always easy. It’s hard to throw away years of bad attitudes, fixed mindsets, and hard hearted behaviors especially if they are generational. At any point Hophni and Phineas could have turned and repented. They could have become true priest of the Living God but they chose to continue in their synagogue backed paganism.

What will it take for us to grow so much in the Lord that He appears to us in peace? I’m not preaching peace and safety where there is none. We can be at peace with God even as the world around us is at war. We can worship in spirit and in truth and not offer profane fire. We can hold each other accountable and be accountable to others ourselves. The unteachable and unrepentant heart will prostitute the word of the Lord and cause nothing but discord.

Samuel had a long career as a prophet of God that was marked by two roles: prayer and instruction. We should be in prayer to fill spiritual trash bags with everything God wants us to get rid of. There should be no grumbling at the cost of the bags; we didn’t pay it anyway. Reversely, there should be no bragging about ho many bags we can fill if we never intend to get rid of them. We should be following God’s instructions on how to completely be rid of the refuse. God wants a clean house. Just as the temple where Samuel served was the house of the Lord, so is the body of the true believer.

It’s time to take the trash of sin to the curb. Bag it. Box it. Bundle it. But don’t bring it back into the house.