Have you got your new bins? What do you say when your stationary bin starts moving? BINGO!
Probably like you I’ve bin looking into what needs to go into each one. I’ve watched videos of bottles being deep washed so they can be reused and plastic shredded and bundled up so that can be remoulded into new products, magnets attracting and sorting out the metallic waste to be sent away to be refilled– all from the blue bin. The green lidded bin’s contents are repulped into new paper products and the food waste and garden waste can be made into compost, finding its place in the food cycle. Well, I thought, the stuff in the black bin is the really rejected material – the rubbish that doesn’t fit in any of the other categories. But I was wrong – it is incinerated and produces electricity! A good recycling bin always gives waste a second chance.
I believe in second chances. Thankfully, so does God. Not only does Jesus’ death and resurrection restore our relationship with God but we are transformed through the Spirit.
In Romans 12:2, the Apostle Paul exhorts believers, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” This verse highlights the transformative process as a renewal of the mind, distinguishing believers from worldly patterns and aligning them with God’s will. Or when read it from The Message it really hits home ‘Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognise what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well formed maturity in you.’
Just like our rubbish – no one is beyond transformation. It can be a painful process – sorting and selecting, squeezing and squashing, crumpling and crushing but in the end we become a new creation – no more in condemnation.