Trash or Treasure
by John Fischer (used by permission) www.purposedrivenlife.com
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It’s a radical thought, perhaps the most radical thought in Christian theology, given our nature, that God takes pleasure in us. Right now: God looks at you and me and smiles.
Why is this so hard to grasp? Because we are so unworthy and we fall so far short of what God intended for us. Wouldn’t He look at us and be nothing but disappointed? We would. He is so perfect; we are so flawed. How does this work?
Here’s how. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, in this case, in the eyes of God. We are beautiful to God because He sees us that way. Beauty originates with Him. As John Ortberg writes in Love Beyond Reason, “[God’s love] is a love that fastens itself onto ragged little creatures, for reasons that no one could ever quite figure out, and makes them precious and valued beyond calculation.”
This weekend my wife and I cleaned out a storage unit of stuff that had been collecting since our last move, five years ago. As a result, we filled up half a dumpster with what we had accumulated like pack rats. The rule was, if you had to deliberate over it for more than a few seconds, toss it. We probably should have had a yard sale, but we’re just not the yard sale type. As it was, these things have a way of working out anyway. I caught a number of people carrying back to their storage area, something we had thrown away. That dumpster became a very popular spot for the rest of the weekend.
And speaking of yard sales, have you ever moved stuff temporarily out of your garage so you could clean, and noticed people stopping and looking at everything? You almost have to put a sign out “THIS IS NOT A GARAGE SALE.” People love this kind of thing. Drive around my neighborhood any Saturday morning and you can spot yard sale fanatics out trolling. As they say “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
That’s the way it is with God and us. You may think you are trash, but God thinks otherwise. God sees a treasure. We are valuable because God has chosen to place a value on us. That value is measured by the blood of His Son with which He has purchased us; and His goal is to recreate us to conform to the image of what He sees, so the universe will one day see what He saw all along. We see trash; He sees treasure. This starts with how we see ourselves, but you can see how it would carry over into how we see everyone else.
Stop sometime today and think about God smiling over you. It will make you smile from out of nowhere.
John Fischer is an author, speaker and song writer. For more of his writing,
visit www.purposedrivenlife.com
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Glory be to God , i can no longer trash myself knowing fully that my maker has treasure in me, my answer to any thing that want to put me to trash is that i am a treasure of the most holy God.
it’s true, once we remember who we are in God’s eyes we can deal with life from a unique perspective and realize that there’s something bigger going on in us and around us.
Thank you for this message. At this time, I feel and have acted like pure trash but God is faithful and I am struggling to hold on to that work of knowledge.