One Man’s Trash

Romans 3:22b-24 – “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

We New Hampshire dwellers might think we’re very different – some transplants, some natives, some vacationers. But we all share the same problem: our trash. When spring arrives, so do the black bears, and they tote along an insatiable appetite for dirty diapers, meat scraps, and every other unsavory thing we humans throw away. On a bright June morning it is common to spot an unlucky soul who woke up to their dumpster or trash can setup decimated by a hungry bear, with their yard full of the aftermath. There is one particular dumpster on our road that is constantly being raided by bears. I admit that perhaps one too many times, I've grinned and shaken my head at this poor sap’s yard when I saw the carnage, thinking, “Better him than me!”

All spring, we listened to bears getting into many neighbors’ dumpsters, but never ours. To say I’d gotten unreasonably confident was an understatement. We live at the top of our hill, and our trash setup only consists of two plastic trash cans within a small, two line electric fence. We got so used to the lack of bears that for some reason, we never plugged in our electric fence! It was only a matter of time. One fine morning I woke up to dirty diapers and other disgusting things strewn throughout our woods.. And then after I cleaned it up and proceeded to plug in the electric fence, the same thing happened. He’d found us. And because we thought we were invincible somehow, we’ve got to rethink our whole setup.

I think you can see what I’m getting at. Not only does “pride come before a fall,” but if you think you’re invincible to something – a certain sin, pitfall, or situation – you’re truly not. We’re all human, and we all have the same problems. Thankfully, as we read in Romans 3:23-24, we also all have the same solutions.