God Recycles

One thing you should know about me is that I am one of those people who go through life in stages and usually remember occurrences in my life associated with the “period” that I was in at that time. I am very committed to that project at the time, but it doesn’t take me long to get bored with it and move onto something new.  For example, I sold Discovery Toys for awhile and was totally into it, bought the kit, did some shows, and I did pretty well with it, but it only lasted about 6 months.  Then I moved into the home remodeling business, well actually it was just my home…after watching Trading Spaces a few times, I thought, “Well, that looks easy enough” and I began gutting my kitchen.  I did really well at taking it apart, but when it was time to put it back together, I kind of lost interest, and it never got done at all and we sold the house. Recently I got REALLY involved in using old t-shirts to make new things.  It started out as a class project for my students, making scarves out of squares cut from t-shirts.  My students absolutely loved it.  It was so simple that they could easily do it themselves, and more importantly the parent’s were super impressed.  While doing the project at school it sparked that little obsession gene in me that got me hooked into my “Recycling T-shirts” phase of my life.  If I sewed one scarf over Christmas break I sewed 40! I didn’t just stop at this pattern; I got on Pinterest.com and had a different pattern every day.  My students were like…Wow, you really like scarves!  One day Paden and I went to the Salvation Army to buy shirts.  When we pulled up, Paden said, “mom, this isn’t right, I feel like we are stealing from the poor”.  I said A. We’re the poor and B. We are actually helping the poor with our purchase.  Before we left the store she found a sweater and 2 sweatshirts for herselfJ

Anyway one day when I was in my sewing “zone”, I began to think about God and it just came to me that God recycles us, just like I am recycling these useless t-shirts.  Man himself was made from the recycled dust of the ground, so says Genesis 2:7… He takes a broken down, poor excuse of a human being and turns them into a beautiful righteous saint that will inherit the riches of an eternal life.  How awesome is that? I knew that this would be my next devotion so I started to peruse through the verses dealing with Renewal.

But before I did that I went to Google, and much to my surprise I found a VERY interesting recycling story… Apparently there is this coffee that is called Kopi Luwak, It is based in Indonesia and considered a delicatessen.  In fact it costs $200 for a pound of coffee and that does not include shipping.  But let me tell you how they get this coffee.  So…first they have these beautiful coffee flowers that look like a gorgeous bundle of honeysuckle blooms and then you have these sweet red cherries that contain the coffee bean.  This is where an animal that is called a Civet, it looks like a cross between a raccoon and a mongoose, comes in and eats the cherries…and then the cherries goes through his digestion system and mixes with all his digestive juices and then when he poops the workers go through his poop and gathers up the coffee beans that came from the cherries he ate.  They wash them off of course and then dry them out and then package them up as gourmet coffee drinkers for lots of money…Now that my friends is recycling!!!  And first of all who sits around and says, hey here’s an idea.. let’s go through that poop and dig out the beans and make coffee with it????

Okay, maybe I should stick with what the bible says.  My concordance had the verses that most of us are familiar with, such as:

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

2 Corinthians 4:16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Then there it was in my concordance T. I. T. 3:5….Where???? Oh, yeah, Titus…I heard of that book once.  Well honestly, I was like where is Titus…Old Testament, New Testament??? Eventually I found it, and it was so small I decided to read the whole thing. I want to focus on chapter 3 verses 3-8. 

³ At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. ⁴ But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, ⁵ he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. ⁸ This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

I love how Paul really wants to get our attention here with “This is a trustworthy saying”  It’s like he is saying everything I say is from God and the Truth, but this, my friend, you can take to the bank….there’s no if’s, and’s, and but’s about this one!   Reread verse 5 and 6! Don’t you love when God “pours” out his love and grace on you?!?!

I hate to do this to you, but here is what I want to leave you with today…No matter what kind of poop you have been in or find yourself in, Jesus can pull you out and recycle you into a valuable heir with the assurance of eternal life!