I had been beating myself up about something I’d said the previous day. Instantly regretting some unkind words yet unable to retract them. Even after repenting over and over again, those errant words rattled in my memory, taunting and casting a shadow of guilt over the new day.
The next day, the day after my gossipy blip, I was out and about in the spring sunshine when I saw this very large dumper truck drive up a rough farm track where I was walking. It was delivering a large load of unwanted stones. Stones, I discovered would shortly form the foundations of a new building project, a classic example of one person’s rubbish being another’s useful recycling.
The truck drove in and reversed, lining up its back end with the designated spot where the driver had been told to dump his load. Then slowly, the bed of the truck hummed and lifted; higher and higher until the weight of the stones caused the tailgate to open and they poured out. They clattered and rattled down the sliding truck bed to form a growing heap on the ground. As the pile grew, the truck had to inch forward to give space for all the stones to run out. When the load was fully dumped, the tipper bed hummed back down, and the truck driver drove off with a cheery wave leaving behind a mini mountain of grey stones.
Having dumped his load, the driver was never going to go back and pick them up. Why would he? He had done what was needed and given his rubbish to someone else who could usefully use it.
The analogy doesn’t need spelling out!
I, however, needed to be reminded again. When I’d realised what I’d said dishonoured God and His image in me, I had genuinely repented. I did not need to return and pick up that rubbish again.
Leaving our stuff- our sin, our regrets with God is a conscious practical choice as much as a spiritual one it seems!
I walked on with a new spring in my step, that lovely spring day.