Garage Sale God

I had a garage sale last week. It had been 3 years, and it was time. I respect garage sales-and I really like garage sale people. Some of the buyers see the obvious: the choco-brown plush jacket, bought and never worn; the vacuum seal Food Saver in virgin condition. And then there are those who see the good in what is less-than new: a large TV with a broken VCR-but who still has videos on their shelves (besides me)? A very-dated-but-not-yet-antique Singer sewing machine, a well-used toilet snake and a smaller one for sinks (not quite sure how it really works), and 4 partial quarts of paint from 2003. Then there was the creative woman who spied a box of jars: some for canning, some just washed out salsa bottles, with other odds and ends thrown in. She wanted them all. People on an overcast weekend, looking for the treasure in another person's "junk"--the cast offs, the no-longer wanted, the "what is it?", the broken and seemingly beyond repair things.
Garage Sale People display the image of their Creator, because God sees beyond the obvious, beyond the external. He looks at what we call junk, sees Divine Design, and reclaims it for divine purposes, whenever we let him. God has an eye--and a heart--for the broken, the cast off, the seemingly useless, the old and tired, the one passed among many owners.
Every analogy about God breaks down at points, so don't push too hard. But this one is strong at it's center point of redemption. God is a Rummage Sale Redeemer! Have you experienced that yet? If you have, you know that "you are not your own; you were bought at a price"--the highest ever paid--on a darkly overcast weekend, long ago.
I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Psalm 40: 1-3a

Diann Elyse Enderby
NewSong Church
Director of Care & Missional Development