Moving on

For years I have been a regular visitor to the Townmead Road dump - sorry, I mean the ‘recycling centre’. It is a place where one senses an atmosphere of relief and joy whilst logically one would expect sadness, as articles are surrendered that had at one time cost dear and had become part of people’s lives. On reflection, however, one begins to understand that the process of clearing out gives us space to grow, change and move on.
 
On a recent visit I noted one of the staff cutting open a black bin bag deposited on a skip. He was checking as to whether it contained anything that could pollute or possibly be of value. I commented, “I guess you can find surprises in some of these bags.” His immediate response was “you would never believe what we find - and often stuff that they wouldn’t want their ‘muvver’ to know they had!”
 
Yes, the dump gives opportunity to clean up and move on.
 
David the Psalmist prays that God will “make in me a pure heart.”
 
Christ says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8)
 
In our life pilgrimage we must move forward, but this needs us to review and face up to habits that have developed and situations that are inappropriate or unhelpful and ready for the dump. This gives us space to move on, in our work, family and church life. We rightly need to be faithful in our Christian ministry and our calling from God, but we should not be surprised if periodically He leads us into a seasonal change in our pilgrimage. Moving on does not mean that we are unfaithful. We are to be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ and His purposes for us and it’s from this that an effective Christian walk and activity develops.

Photo by Nareeta Martin on Unsplash