“I still don’t get it,” I say. “If you’re not a stalker, not a blackmailer, what could possibly be good about sifting through our trash?”

Finding the Good in the Bad

Then, I see the most amazing glow envelop his face. It’s that look of blissful satisfaction someone gets when he’s quietly accomplishing his wildest dream.

“I get to take it away,” he says. “I destroy it, so no one else will ever have to see it. I wade through this filth so that your life will be clean. Take this letter. . . .” he pauses, his gloved hands retrieving a wadded package from the back of his truck. He flashes it before me, just long enough for me to see my handwriting and recognize the document. It’s my draft of a letter to a friend, full of gossip and hate toward a mutual acquaintance.

“I shouldn’t have written that,” I stammer, red-faced.

“Imagine what your house would look like if it were filled with all the letters you’ve ever written,” he says. “What if the words you spoke could stain the walls and your actions were slimy heaps of debris on the carpet? What if each of your bad thoughts hung in the air like an odor? Would you really want to live in that place?”

Now I’m speechless. I want to ask, “Who are you?” But I think I already know.

“Thanks to me, you don’t have to live like that,” he continues, waving the letter. “By tonight, this will be gone forever. I won’t even remember it tomorrow. Believe me, my memory about this stuff is horrible!”

Once again, I notice a putrid stench. But I suddenly realize it isn’t coming from him at all. It’s me. I hang my head in embarrassment, but he just smiles.

“So what do you say? Can I use your phone?”

I nod. There are no words left, only tears.

And right there in the parking lot, the garbage man puts his arms around me. Some guy driving to the next building turns to stare. His jaw is on the floorboard.

But it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. The garbage man’s arms are warm, and immediately the stench is gone.

The air smells fresh and sweet again.

It’s the scent of freedom.

Know It!
When God forgives you from sin, He chooses to remember it no longer. The Bible tells us He casts your sin as far as the East is from the West. There’s no way to measure dimensions from the East to the West as there is from the North to the South. So God casts your sins so far from His mind, they simply don’t exist any longer.

Read It!
Psalm 103:12; Luke 5:21; Acts 10:43; Colossians 2:13.

Pray It!
Spend time thanking God for taking your garbage, your sin, your rotten attitudes and not only forgiving you—but choosing to forget as well.

Check out yesterday’s devo, The Gift of the Garbage Man (Part II) .