Several months
ago, we woke up to find a pile of garbage six feet high by about ten feet wide
dumped outside our building. It was there in a massive state, tied up in large
fishing nets looking like a giant package that had dropped from the sky. It
was hard to imagine who had hauled it there and why they decided to put in by
our building of all places.
We tried all the conventional avenues to get rid of it, but each resulted in a dead end. The university couldn’t help us, they
said, the city promised to come but never showed up. We had friends call and
remind them of their promises, and then received more promises along with
estimated dates. But they never came, and we walked outside each morning to the
same large and smelly pile of garbage.
When we
finally realized that no one was going to help us remove it, Mark and I resorted
to our own creative ideas. One plan was that we would hoist the garbage up to
the main street late at night and leave it there. The only problem with that idea
was the possibility of a car or bus hitting it and causing an accident. Another
plan was to drag it up to the corner so that everyone passing by would see it
and hopefully complain. But each of the nets was so large and heavy we couldn’t
figure out how would we’d get it there.
After seeing
the impracticality of both plans, I knew we had only one choice remaining: to ask
for God’s help. I’m embarrassed to admit that it hadn’t dawned on me until I’d
run out of options. The verse that immediately came to mind was the one in
Matt. 21:21 where Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not
doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say
to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.”
For me, the garbage had become an immovable, insurmountable
mountain that I had no way of getting rid of. So I began giving it to the Lord,
telling him that if he wanted he could remove it, that I would release it to
him and allow him to guide us in wisdom and to complete the task that I was
incapable of doing. I’d pass it in the morning on my way to work trying not to look at it and pray, “It’s your mountain, God. I’m
trusting you to get rid of it or show me how to do it.” This went on for over a
week, and I won’t lie in saying it wasn't frustrating. In fact, one night I
awoke to a terrible smell. When I realized that we had left the bathroom window
cracked and that the odor was coming from the garbage pile, I was undone. How
could we live like this much longer, I wondered.
Another week went by and it remained planted in its
same spot, right where I could see it when I entered and left our apartment
each day. Then at five one morning we heard loud talking, bottles clanging and then the roar of a truck driving off. When we went down we saw that they had
come and taken it, but only half of it, leaving the remaining half strewn about
the ground and giving it an even more unsightly appearance. After I came
slightly unglued, we prayed again that God would finish the work he’d begun and
that we’d continue casting the burden on him.
Later that day, due to our neighbor’s insistence and God’s great
intervention, they came and hauled the rest of it off.
I’m still amazed when I walk by that spot – the place where
a mountain of unmovable trash once laid. A place of despair and rot and
ugliness that looked unyielding. And I think of the other trash heaps that I’ve
let pile up and remain intact. The lies I’ve believed, the anger I’ve allowed
to grow rancid in my heart, the fear that often engulfs me. God is the God of action
and power. He’s in the business of taking down strongholds and moving
mountains. I’m asking him today to haul
off some piles that have been around for way too long, and I know from experience and from his word that he's going to do it.
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if
we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that
he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 Jn
5:14-15)
