Ash heap

“He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap” Psalm 113:7

Ash heap – The God of garbage.  We aren’t exposed to many of these people so we don’t really appreciate the impact they have on society.  Sometimes we catch a glimpse of them as we cruise the concrete overpasses in the city or look down from the windows of our air-conditioned offices.  If they happen to wander into our neighborhoods, we call the police.  But in the days of David the psalmist, they were an ever-present reminder that society always has people who live on the edge.

The Hebrew word ashpoth is really the garbage dump (or worse, a dung pile).  You can look at Lamentations 4:5 to see this word used again.  It describes the condition of a group of people that attract God’s special intervention.  This particular word means those who are oppressed and weak.  They are helpless in their situation.  They have no economic power.  They are the credit unworthy, the dispossessed.   These are people whose lives have deteriorated to living off garbage.

I believe that every Christian in America needs to take a trip to Haiti.  The first time I went there to help build a school; I traveled to the third largest city in the country.  100,000 people with no electricity.  No sewers.  No running water.  But Cite Soleil (City of the Sun) made that look insignificant.  In that section of the capital, 500,000 are living in all manner of ramshackle huts — many made of nothing more than cardboard.  Garbage people.  Garbage lives.  People we throw away.  But God calls them “My special ones.”

Tomorrow we will discover something incredible about this verse, something that reveals who the real garbage people are.  But today, it is enough to know that God cares for these people.  This verse does not say that God cares for them if they serve Him or when they accept Him or even when they become better citizens.  It says that God loves them because He created each of them and God loves what He creates.  The problem is not God’s.  It is ours.  They are garbage people because we think no more of them than trash.

Have you considered the garbage people today?  Are they trash to you?

One thing to do today:  Today I will deliberately say a prayer for the ones society considers refuse.

(continued tomorrow)