Earth Day means clean up day

So today I cleaned the trash out of the ditch out front of our house, we are on the highway so we get more garbage than I like to think about. I found myself thinking ‘I wonder if any of this could be worth something?’ None of it was.
Today, I also saw a news report on the growing cases of homeless people in the city. To be honest, it was pretty clear that the government was very politely saying that they had no way to deal with them, and they very subtly referenced them as trash. Oh, that word wasn’t used, but it was certainly implied. I grew up in Vancouver so homeless people aren’t strange to me, and due to my time spent there I learned a lot about the homeless, in fact we had lessons on them in school. Yes some were trouble creators, but many were just people who had no where else to go, and frankly I know a lot of non homeless people who are trouble makers, their status doesn’t make them bad people. I say them, but they could easily be us. A lost job, an abusive relationship, a family that is broken, suddenly you have no place to go and end up on the street. You don’t need anyone else to say you’re trash because you feel it everyday. But even the people that we as other people see as garbage, and don’t stand there saying you aren’t like that, most people see someone as trash; adulterers, addicts, your neighbor, your brother, that homeless guy you see ducking into an ally because people scare him, that prostitute who was born into the brothel and doesn’t know how to get out? Any of these make a bell go off? I’m just naming the ones that I have heard spoken against first hand, I am sure there are many more that people tend to look down on. But even if we see a person as trash, God doesn’t. That atheist who has turned his back on God and ridiculed Him, is still loved by God. The homeless lady who drinks away every dollar she has so she is starving but still uses her hand outs for more drink, she is precious to God. Just because we sin, or make mistakes, or are subtly referred to as waste that the government doesn’t know what to do with, doesn’t mean that God doesn’t value us. He loves all people! Just because the beer cans, random rag, empty cigarettes box, single gross sock and so on  that I collected out of our ditch wasn’t capable of being worth anything to me, outside of the satisfaction of knowing that no garbage would blow into our farmer’s fields from our side of the road, doesn’t mean that someone more thrifty than myself wouldn’t find a purpose for them. God is greater than all of us and sees our purpose, potential and possibilities and more than that He sees all of us for us, no matter who we are or what we do. Never forget that.