Just One - Word Junk

Junk

Lora Parsons

The Ashland Beacon

A few weeks ago, now, our church (Shawnee Church of God in Flatwoods, KY) had a yard sale which brought all kinds of folks out to rummage through our rummage.  The catalyst behind the yard sale was Brenda Deskins’ vision that it becomes not only an opportunity for us all to purge, but also to extend ourselves a little further out into the surrounding community.  As a result, a few new faces have become part of our church family.  Max and Bethany Allen and their daughter, Ella, are among those.

To know Ella is to love her!  She’s just this beautiful little ball of the most energetic kind of sweetness!  So, it seems like it wasn’t out of character at all for her to wake up the other morning and ask her momma “to go junkin’.”  As any good treasure-hunting enthusiast would react, Bethany promptly (and rightfully so) patted herself on the back for a job well done in raising her right!  It likely provided her a little glimpse down the road with future big-girl Ella to thrift stores and antique malls, collections and treasures, and search times ending in the best find of the day.  So much potential in those words, “Momma, let’s go junkin’!”

Since the day that Bethany posted that little story to her Facebook feed, I’ve had the word “junk” tumbling around in my head.  It sort of half-way unlocked a childhood memory of a phrase: “‘Cause God don’t make no junk” from many years ago.  It was meant to be an encouragement for those moments in life when we might feel like mistakes and mess-ups are all too prevalent around us.  Or, maybe even, when we might feel, ourselves, like we are the mistake.  We can be assured that our existence isn’t a coincidence, that our value is evidenced by the fact that God created us.  We have a purpose because He had a plan for our lives when He established us.

That didn’t quite feel like all the word contained, though.  As I kept thinking on it, I began to wonder about the use of words like junk, trash, or rubbish in the Bible, so I consulted Google.  In Isaiah 64:6, it says: “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”  In this verse, we are described as unclean, polluted, very similar to trash.  And Philippians 3:8 makes that connection even more explicitly:  “What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.”  Paul says any good that’s come from him--any achievements that he might have attained in his life--are junk compared to knowing Jesus.  And we know that Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth wasn’t exactly the kind of place that the Savior of the world might be born in.  Scripture shows us through Nathaneal’s reaction in the book of John that “nothing good comes from Nazareth.”  The very fact that His Kingdom was established by a merciful act of sacrifice from the position of the cross rather than a heroic display of setting up an empire on earth illustrates the humble beginnings that our Heavenly Father prefers over opulence and luxury.  It’s His 3-day long temporary uncleanness upon that cross that provides us the means we need to become clean.  Jesus--from a junk-like place, taking on the nasty shame of the cross, takes the dirt and grime that we lay at His feet and redeems us.

My childhood phrase that “God don’t make no junk” might be true in one sense but false in a very significant manner.  In a sense, God did make junk when He sent His beloved Son into the world to become our sin.  But thankfully, it didn’t stop there.  Jesus became the junk that we couldn’t redeem on our own so that we might find ourselves acceptable to our Heavenly Father through Him.  Junk in God’s hands truly is the best kind of treasure that we might ever find.  When we give our junk over to Him, He can hammer out any imperfections, shine up any dullness, and breathe new life into what was buried and covered over by our own dirt and muck.

“Momma, let’s go junkin’,” takes on a whole new meaning when we recognize that we were what the search for junk was all about; He found us in our junky state; and, He can transform us into His treasured best-find-of-the-day if we allow Him to…’cause God don’t make no junk.”