Dear Friends,

Our bins have just been changed which means I’ve got to learn a whole new
way of dealing with our rubbish which basically translates into me needing to
work out what goes in which bin and when that bin is collected!
The way we deal with our rubbish has come a long way in recent years. No
longer can we simply heap it into bin bags and expect the refuse collectors to
take it way, nor can we take a carload of junk down to the tip and hurl it all
into a skip. Most councils nowadays ask us to sort our glass, tins, food and
paper, and local tips recycle card, wood, electrical items, metal, hardcore and
even plastic, along with much else. All this, of course, is a response to growing
environmental awareness as the long-term damage caused by our throwaway
society is increasingly realised. We’ve come to recognise that what would
previously have been dismissed as worthless can, with a little time and effort,
be given a new lease of life. 
Applied to people, that simple truth takes us to the very heart of the gospel, or
as Paul writes in his first letter to the church in Corinth, ‘God, however, chose
the foolish of this world in order to shame the wise, the weak to shame the
strong, the lowest and despised – those considered nothing – to quash those
who consider themselves something, so that nobody may boast before him.’
Whereas we can write others or even ourselves off as beyond redemption and
of little worth to anyone, God thinks differently; he is able to use what the
world counts as nothing in ways beyond imagining. Many at Corinth were
despised as inconsequential, but in God’s eyes, said Paul, they were infinitely
precious, special to him. So it is for us all. God sees not simply what we are but
what we can be, and through Christ he gave his all to make the latter possible.
Never despair, then, of anyone, for however much you may be tempted to do
so, He will not.
Yours in Christ
Simon