Can you hear Him?

I opened up my bible and prayed that He would speak to me. I read through Acts 22 this morning and reflected on Saul’s story and his transformation and how clearly the Spirit seemed to speak to him and direct him, and I asked the Lord if He still speaks to His servants that clearly even today… I knew Paul was especially appointed for his specific task… and though I knew the task that the Lord had for me wasn’t necessarily to initiate the spread of the gospel to the gentiles or write most of the New Testament, I was still desperate to be used by Him and be guided and moved by His Spirit. Not having necessarily heard anything “clear,” I set my bible down and decided to go on a walk. 

That decision in and of itself is sort of a miracle on its own as I really strongly dislike walking (but that conversation is for another time and place). I strapped on my weight vest (because if I was gonna walk, I was gonna WALK), put my headphones in, queued up a sermon on Psalm 62 that my friend had sent me (because maybe I’d hear Him speak to me through that), and walked out the door. 

When I do muster up the motivation to walk, I walk the same route each time. In the countless times I have walked this route before, I have never once had the initiative to bend down and pick up pieces of trash. Though I care greatly about the environment and obviously reject the notion of littering, I am just being honest and transparent, I’ve never done it before. 

Until today. 

Mid-walk I found myself crossing over my local bridge, and as I neared the top it grew increasingly more windy, and a potato chip bag randomly flew through the air and literally flattened itself onto my shins. I am not sure if that really counts as me “picking up trash,” as it rather “picked me,” but regardless, I made the decision to carry it the rest of the way until I found a nearby trashcan. But once I was holding that empty chip bag in my hand, I couldn’t help but notice all the other pieces of trash along the road as I was walking (and apparently had missed seeing before), and I decidedly started to pick up each piece as I went. 

PLEASE HEAR ME. 

The moral of this story is not that “I’m such a kind and caring person who routinely takes time out of her day to stop and pick up trash alongside the road.” Actually, its quite the opposite. As I was walking with the increasing amounts of trash in my hand, the thought came into my mind, “Why haven’t I ever done this before?” 

I reluctantly walk this route all the time, and I’ve never once noticed or felt the initiative to pick up a piece of trash (let alone the whole pile that was ever-growing in my hand). And as I asked myself the question, I realized I already knew the answer. I don’t feel the need to pick up the trash (or the idea never crosses my mind to even look for it) because I wasn’t the one who dropped it. 

Though I have made it a point thus far to not “toot my own horn,” I will admit that when I do drop a piece of trash somewhere accidentally outside, I DO pick that up, naturally. Why? Because it’s my responsibility. But my immediate reaction when I see trash outside is- “it isn’t mine,” “I didn’t drop it,” or “I can’t believe someone would do that.” I don’t pick it up or think to pick it up (at least as quickly as if it were mine) because I didn’t drop it… I didn’t do it. It’s not my debt to pay.

But Jesus doesn’t just ask us to “only pick up the trash we dropped.” 

We aren’t called to just love “only the people who love us back.”

We aren’t called to just serve “only the people who deserve it.”

We aren’t called to be ministers of reconciliation for “only the things that concern us.”

We aren’t called to just pray for “only the people who pray for us.” 

We aren’t called to spread the good news about who He is and what He’s done “to only those who we think should hear it.”

What if Jesus came down to this earth and only “picked up the things He dropped?” That’s right, he wouldn’t have “picked up anything” because as the perfect, sinless, Son of God He “dropped nothing.”

He did the opposite. 

He didn’t see a piece of trash on the side of the road and think, “Well, that isn’t my responsibility.  I didn’t drop that.” Instead, He willingly entered into our “trash-filled” (sin-filled) world and “trash-filled” (sin-filled) hearts that were our fallen responsibility, and made it His own. 

Why? 

Because He loved us.  

And what does He call us to do? 

He calls us to love others. But not just to “love others,” but to love others “just as He loved us” (John 13:34). 

“Just as.”

By adopting the responsibility. By inheriting the debt. By “picking it up” when it isn't "ours to pick up."

It costs us something to love others in this way. 

And yet, we are surprised when it does, and fall into un-Christlike patterns of thinking that result in “piles of trash” accumulating along the side of the road. 

What if my motivation to love others/do good (“pick up the trash”),

wasn’t rooted in whether or not it was my responsibility/was owed to me 

(“if I was the one who dropped it or not”)?

I think it would look a lot more like how Jesus loved me. 

Sometimes God chooses to speak to me through His Word. 

But this morning, He chose instead to speak to me through a piece of trash. 

How is He speaking to you today? 

Can you hear Him?

Ever "quieting the noise" to be able to hear "His low whisper" (1 Kings 19)... even "amidst the trash,"

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