Have you ever been bamboozled by trash?  We face a weekly challenge! Our town has allotted a specific trash can we must use- available in small, medium, and large. (we have the largest available lol)

Everything- I mean  e v e r y t h i n g  must fit in it for the week- no exceptions.  We stomp, sit, crush, mush, and smash everything we can into the bags trying to diminish their bulk.  We’re even recycling more and even trying to use less- but we still find plenty of “trash” we have to properly dispose.

I’ve been wondering lately,

is trash a sign of wealth, or is it a reflection of careless discernment and vision?

What exactly makes something “castoff trash”- “junky rubbish”- “useless debris”- “disposable excess”- “filthy dregs” “unwanted waste”?

Take Catuera-Paraguay

An unbelievably poor village, a slum, really, where 2500 people subsist on a landfill; a neglected part of society, left to scrounge a living from the trash heap.

Once, a throwaway, forgotten village, now, scroungers and collectors, search with wizened visage to reclaim and re-purpose useless, worn-out, trash.

One man’s trash has become another man’s treasure!

 Everything has become about re-purposing into something, not just useful, but ethereal- other-worldly; for their trash is transposed to music! http://allthingsd.com/20121213/musical-recycling-paraguayan-youth-turn-landfill-trash-into-an-orchestra-video/

For example….. a fork becomes a fret on a violin, a cello is created from an old oil drum, wood, & old kitchen tools!  Two jelly cans form the body of a classical guitar, a saxophone’s keys are fashioned from bottle caps, and unbelievably, discarded X-rays are stretched and fastened into drums. Incredible!

To my ears, their music is all the sweeter; rising upward from the landfill of rejection- they are pure melody in the hands of the master musician.  http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2012/12/more-heartbreak-at-the-landfill-harmonic.html

 Take People.

The alcoholic, the drug addict, the whore, the destitute; the orphan, the AIDS victims, the abused and trafficked sex slaves, the children ripped from their mother’s womb & thrown into a literal trash can, the overwhelming mass of people who are either purposely labeled and rejected as worthless junk or those who are ignored and overlooked because their potential value is hidden from all but One.

I am compelled to illuminate this Truth!

From the moment of conception- to the minute we draw our last breath-

PEOPLE ARE NOT TRASH-

No one is worthless or too broken for Jesus!

[Tweet “People are NOT trash; God deems no one worthless or beyond rescue!”]

Take Jesus.

Iparana Studio

He is the Master Scrounger- He came to seek and SAVE that which was lost and discarded- the wasted- the rejects- the throwaways of society, the useless, the broken, the forgotten, all the trash people who have lost their purpose and vision.  The “trash” is translated into music in His hands.

He is the Master Redeemer- the Colossal Collector- He loves showing off His re-purposed people; pulled out of uselessness, reformed and refitted for the Master’s use- astonishing the world with their music- and I believe their music rises purest and lovely, as the love of the Master’s hand caresses their souls.

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I get so excited I wish I could shout loud enough to wake up the sleeping, unobservant discarders and wasters of human souls! We are throwing away our most precious resource of all- PEOPLE!

There’s a miracle going on here and He invites us to scrounge and collect with Him- joining Him in turning trash into treasure!

That’s the miracle that occurs when one man’s trash becomes One Man’s Treasure!

Surprising Treasures: Jesus came to SEEK and SAVE that which is lost! No one is trash in His sight-

He died to redeem the broken!