As we approach the beginning of a New Year, I can't help but wonder what the "New Year" will hold. Perhaps some might consider making resolutions to help stay committed to a diet or giving it your all at work or reading the Word more, etc.
I have been thinking about garbage. Yes that's right garbage.
In the summer of 1986 Philadelphia had a major municipal strike that affected trash collection. The trash just kept piling up. The surrounding states refused to take it and that's when a ship called the Khian Sea aka Felicia aka Pelicano stepped in. The owners thought they could turn a quick profit by transporting the garbage. The trash was burned and dumped into the bottom of the ship. At first no one would take it and eventually it was too old and who wants potentially toxic trash? It seems that trash-filled ships find few friends. Trash-filled hearts don't make out much better.
Khian Sea aka Felicia aka Pelicano
Does that sound strange to you? Well perhaps you have the wrong mind picture.
I am talking about the trash, emotional, mental and spiritual trash you might be carrying into the New Year? I don't know about you but I have had better years than 2015. Yet I seem to be holding on to some things that need to be discarded. How about you?
In looking back to where I was when I first met my Lord and Savior Jesus I had hope in my steps, a plan and a map to get me where I needed to be.
The Pelicano travelled to several ports as many as a dozen in fact, and each time it was turned away. However, along its travels it changed its name a few times. It still carried the same trash. Changing the name didn't make the trash disappear.
It sailed aimlessly for 14 years. In April 2000, Waste Management Inc. loaded 2,500 tons of ash and contaminated soil to a barge, the Santa Lucia and shipped it to Florida, where the barge was docked in the St. Lucie Canal. There it stayed for two years until in June 2002 when it was moved to Mountain View Reclamation Landfill, in Franklin County, Pennsylvania near Antrim Township, after several government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, had found the contents to be classified as nonhazardous waste.
Sometimes over the years we have gotten off track to the point where we hardly recognize who we have become. We are so far from who we were when we first accepted our Lord Jesus that we don't recognize the weight we have gained over the years.
The subtle things like how a past hurt from a parent or old school chum or failed relationship has lingered, a comment someone makes or anger shoved so far down that it makes you ready to blow your stack at any moment. Perhaps it was the loss of a loved one. Have you ever been betrayed or lonely?
Paul wrote in, I Corinthians 13:4-5 (NLT) 4Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.
The troubles for the Pelicano started when they accepted the first shovel full of trash. They should have turned it away at the gate.
We also should turn away from the emotional and spiritual situations we allow to rule our lives. Why would we want to accept the garbage and drift aimlessly at times through our lives? That's not accepting what the Lord Jesus Christ offered to us in salvation.
When we search diligently through our trash, we will be able to see what we have opened ourselves up to. What is in your trash bag? What do you need to throw out so you can be made free to serve Him with everything you have?
Don't you know that God sees our burdens? He knows what is in our hearts. We can't hide from Him.
NLT Hebrews 4:13 Nothing in all creation can hide from him. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes. This is the God to whom we must explain all that we have done.
NLT Matthew 12:36 And I tell you this, that you must give an account on judgment day of every idle word you speak.
We will be bearing all come judgment day. Why not lighten our load before then? Do you ever get tired of carrying your trash around?
NRS Matthew 11:28 Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
When we decide to give our garbage bags to God, and learn His Word, He will take our trash far away and never give it back to us. As we apply the principles of the Word in our lives we will begin to feel lighter, more free.
BBE John 8:32 And you will have knowledge of what is true, and that will make you free.
Admitting that we have trash in our lives is the first step towards disposing it.
BBE 1 John 1:9 If we say openly that we have done wrong, he is upright and true to his word, giving us forgiveness of sins and making us clean from all evil.
Jesus Christ tells us in
NLT 1 Peter 5:7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you.
He wants us to bring him the things that are weighing us down. Things we have been carrying for years or for days. The length of time doesn't matter. What matters is that we bring them and let go.
The weight of our sins, our failures and our worries is too much for one person to carry alone. Jesus wants every sin, every sickness. He paid for them, give them to him so that you can live free to serve our God.
Maybe the next time you pray you could say something like this.
Dear God,
"I have been carrying around this garbage bag full of shame, worry, pain, resentment, anger, failure, etc. for so long. Forgive me" and then you forgive those who may have added to this bag.
Let God know that you are confessing them as sin, and renouncing the adversary in your life. Thank Him for taking them from you and filling you with His peace. Then bless those that offended you. I promise you that if you do this you will certainly travel much lighter and be freer to serve the way God intended you to serve.