Trash Day

Thursdays for me are bitter-sweet. In some ways they are really nice because all of the planning that goes into my Wednesday nights (see previous post) is done. The hard part is I usually have so much I need to get accomplished on Thursdays so I can enjoy my day off on Friday. To add to the mood of my Thursdays, this is all our trash day. For the past couple of weeks, my routine of mowing our lawn each week has been thrown off. Some of this is due to weather, but most of it has been thanks to the busyness of summer in the life of a youth pastor. On the weeks that I do get to mow, my trash can is pretty full by the time Thursday rolls around. Since I haven't been able to mow, however, we have had very little trash to get rid of the past few weeks. As I leave for work, I have looked the trash cans in my neighborhood and seen full and sometimes overflowing cans. The sight of their garbage makes me feel like a failure for not having more to be collected by our trash crew. Then I was reminded of a sermon I heard about a year ago by Louie Giglio. He spoke on how we as Americans consume so much that we never consider that amount of waste that we are producing.

Even though I have never been a huge environmentalist, I do wish to take care of God's creation while I am alive. I do my best to not waste food, water, etc., but it isn't always my first concern. Thinking back on our trash day, I felt better about not having an overflowing trash can. Part of me felt like I was paying for a service that wasn't being fully used. I am in no way judging my neighbors because there are many times when I take full advantage of our trash collection. The lesson I have learned and am still learning from trash days is to be careful not to be so wasteful. Not only do I tend to create unnecessary waste, but I also do not need to be consumed with this world. I also find it amazing our something like taking out the trash can teach me a lesson about a loving God. I'm so glad that He uses the simple things in life to teach my simple mind.