Salvaged

On my way into the city I always pass a scrap metal recycling yard. Huge heaps and heaps of twisted, rusted, discarded metal and steel obscure the landscape. I imagine what purposes these pieces of thrown-away fragments once served. Some were, no doubt, shiny family automobiles, or the pride of a young driver, or school buses that transported energized and noisy students on their daily runs to and fro.

Other pieces probably served to heat or cool food in new kitchens, or to wash and dry clothes. There lies a twisted baby highchair and a rusted old backyard fence. The squashed bodies of vacuum cleaners and filing cabinets no longer can be recognized. Each item, once useful and carefully handled by owners, now no longer serves its original purpose.

I realize that I, like that old metal, was thrown on a scrap heap of sin and ruin one day, and that God thought, “I’d like to salvage that one for a new use!” He could see what no one else could. Indeed, He called me to accept His salvaging process so that He could change me completely and forever.

The King James scriptures put it this way in Titus 3:5. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved [salvaged] us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.

When I look up the term Regeneration in the dictionary, I find this definition: a renewal or reform of a person to a better, higher or more worthy state. The definition of Salvage reads: something extracted from rubbish as valuable or useful, to save from wreckage.

How grateful I am that God, through Christ, saw me available for His purifying and reforming process, and in His love and creativity salvaged me from the wrecking ball for a new and greater purpose. I will never look at that scrap yard the same way!