Managing waste

On every Johannesburg street you see the dustbins overflowing with bags full of rubbish. And when you open your car window or go closer, the stench can knock you off completely. It’s not a pretty sight and if the recent strike by Pikitup staff carries on for longer, we are in big trouble.  We are used to living with in a system where all the waste is collected on a regular basis – keeping the balance. To have to live with that stench will be serious torture on us, not to mention health hazards that come with it.

This got me thinking about our spiritual lives. If it’s so hard to live with even a little bit of uncleared household waste, what makes us think we can live with spiritual waste in our lives? In Ps 51: 8 - 12, David asks the Lord to create in him a clean heart – “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.  Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Just like we bath daily, cleanliness and sustenance are key for us to keep on a spiritual high. Spiritual waste can take many forms – unforgiveness, anger, jealousy, dishonesty etc…all the things that are not of God. Yes He understands that we are human and therefore not perfect. But when we renew our minds daily in the word (Rom 12:2), and let Him who is perfect, perfect us with His love then we can keep the collection of spiritual waste at bay. Instead, the aroma we exude will be that which is pleasing to God and has a good impact on those we come across daily.

Seasons

Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again. Sarah Ban Breathnach
Being someone that generally prefers to start the day at gym, I wake up quite early, around 4:30 am (ok I admit that’s ambitious because I only ever manage to get out of bed around 5am after my snooze button’s had enough of me). In the summer months it is quite easy since it’s pretty uncomfortable to sleep in the heat, sharing space with mosquitos and other bugs. By the time the alarm goes I am all ready for it anyway, and the skyline on the outside is pretty light.

Then suddenly, it’s a lot harder to get out of bed because its much darker in the morning, and the temperature is nippy too.  Suddenly is the key word here. I started wondering at what point does this change actually happen? Is there any specific thing I can pinpoint that indicated this sudden change? Yesterday it was much lighter at 5 am, now suddenly its quite dark. I am sure there’s an explanation in meteorological terms of how the seasonal changes takes place, but to the lay person, the seasons come and go silently without us knowing the hour/time/day. All we know is that certain months of the year represent specific seasons, as we are now in autumn. We also behave in specific ways during certain seasons like eating a lot more in winter to keep ourselves warm etc. But there are usually signs that a certain season is upon you, e.g with winter approaching, it’s quite dark at 6am/pm, it’s chilly in the morning and early evening etc. But as to when the turning point took place is elusive - we only see when we are in the throws of that season that its arrived. Sometimes it takes certain events like late summer rains to usher in the new season, but either way the change seems sudden.

This got me thinking of the seasons in our lives. We have so many things to deal with, so much to contend with. You may be going through different seasons in different aspects of your life. Your personal life might be going exceptionally well but your work/career life may be going through turmoil. Or, everything could just be either going exceptionally well or extremely badly. And when these circumstances do change, it’s a ‘suddenly’ moment, without us knowing  the hour or time.

Whatever the case may be, all I know is that we serve an amazing Father who gave us a word in Eccl 3: 1 - 13 that “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…”. I am particularly excited to know that as verse 11 says “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  So no matter what season we are in we ought to continue to serve and praise God.

Vanilla Soul in action at the Times Live iLIVE poetry showcase in March 2011