I recycle.  I feel a global responsibility.  My youngest daughter is studying environmental science at her university and she’s quite the queen of green.  So, it’s just what we do.

The process of recycling is both surprising and fascinating.  It’s surprising because of the sheer volume of trash that leaves my house.  It’s incredible.  You would think I’m pig-pen from Charlie Brown fame.   It seems I have just emptied my trash containers and they are over-flowing again.  It’s like my trash breeds.

I live alone (except when my kids visit).  I don’t eat a lot.  I don’t buy a lot.  How in the world do I keep piling up tiny mountains of plastic, paper, and cardboard?  Surprising!

The fascinating part of recycling is that my trash is being recycled.  Think about it.   Stuff I have used, crumpled, and discarded will be accepted, cleaned, and placed back into service. Pretty cool if you think about it.

So, almost daily, I take out a bucket of recyclable stuff.  I carry it to the blue dumpster at my housing complex.  A few days later, a huge green truck diesels up, lifts the bin, dumps it all in the back and carries it away.  Sometime soon, that which was trash is now clean and useful.

Dang.  I love this!

The parallel to the work of God is exactly like this.  Jesus is the blue dumpster.  I take all the accumulated stuff’ of my life (pride, anger, impatience, impurity, greed….shall I continue?) and I give it all to Christ.  I do this by praying:  “Lord Jesus, I have ( fill in your blank).  I confess it.  I know it’s not the life, attitude, behavior You created me to experience.  You made me for more than this, for a better life than this.  So please forgive me!”

BOOM, CLANG, CRUNCH.  My sin crashes and is deposited into the blue dumpster of Jesus’ hands.  He takes it.  He carries it away inside the green truck of forgiveness.  And then (this is the coolest part), God the Holy Spirit begins to recycle my soul.  He cleans me, reshapes me and places me back in service…back into life again—all clean, all new…ready to try again.

God has designed me (and you) for noble purposes.  He designed us to live a life of meaning and joy; real life!   Sin interrupts and corrupts that.  So, God recycles our pain, recycles our failures, recycles our attitudes and actions…and HE DELIGHTS in giving us a new chance at life!

Ya gotta love that.

Brad Johnson is the pastor of Life Change Community Church, beginning weekly services in Calabasas, CA, January 2010.