Lent Devotional - A Trip to the Dump

​A Trip to the Dump
by Jim Hardenbrook

But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips. Colossians 3:8

I do enjoy a trip to the landfill or “the dump,” as we used to call it. As a youngster, I saw those trips as great adventures!
​I never knew what I would find or whom I would see. Some folks turn up their noses when you mention a landfill, but not
me.

However, something about a landfill never changes: a certain odor is part of the experience. Now don’t get me wrong – the folks who operate our local landfill do a great job, but it still has that certain smell. The smell is not as bad as it was in
the old days, but it is still there. That is just the price you pay for having garbage around – even for a little while.

It is the same way with moral garbage. It stinks. The longer you keep it around, the more it stinks. Garbage such as “anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language” piles up in our hearts and pollutes the whole environment around us. That kind of garbage not only smells bad, it injures families, neighborhoods, offices, churches and communities.

How do we get rid of moral garbage? Some can be recycled, but that takes special handling. Some should be buried, and some should be destroyed, but the best approach is to haul it off to someone who knows how to deal with it.

As a Christian, I believe that Jesus knows best how to handle the moral garbage of my life – and yours. However, that doesn’t happen automatically. We don’t just “get better.” It starts with seeing garbage for what it is, and then deciding to get rid of it.

How about a trip to dump?

Dear Jesus, take the garbage of my life and haul it away. Recycle my experiences – even the bad ones – and use them to teach me to be a better disciple. Amen.