There must be something special about our shed. People just can’t leave it alone.

We have a shed at our church where we keep garbage until pickup day. We didn’t buy a nice, fancy shed, we just turned some space under a set of stairs into one. It’s functional and does what we need it to do. 

We’ve used it for years, but lately other people are using it as well.

In August someone started a fire inside the shed. No one was in the church at the time, but fortunately a neighbour must have noticed and phoned the fire department. 

They were on the scene immediately, mostly because the fire hall is just down the street. 

I’m not sure, but maybe they came extra quickly because, for the last few years, we’ve been delivering Christmas baskets full of goodies to that particular station. Who would not want that to continue?

When it was all said and done, there was no damage to the church – just a hint of a summer campfire in the sanctuary for a couple of Sundays.

The shed wasn’t even destroyed; it merely had some scorching on the inside of one wall. The shed was back to doing its job immediately.

Then a couple of weeks ago someone decided that our garbage shed was closer than going to the dump. So they placed two wooden chairs in the shed.

It was super nice of them to give us their chairs so we could figure out how to dispose of them. 

I’d love to know their thought process in intentionally bringing their chairs over to the church. I wouldn’t think of putting some of my garbage by my curb, and then taking what’s left and putting it by my neighbour’s curb.

This garbage shed apparently begs to be used. 

Then just this past week we found a padlock on the shed. At first I thought maybe our caretaker was fed up with other people using our shed and locked it up.

But that wasn’t the case. One of our groups took the lock off and found someone’s personal belongings in the shed … along with a dog food bowl with some dog food in it. 

Then this morning, just before I arrived at the church for a 7 am prayer meeting, three police vehicles showed up at the shed. 

They talked to a young man who had been living in our shed for several days.

When I arrived on the scene the young man was all packed up, and assured me that he had cleaned everything up and left no garbage.

When I checked later, it was clean … but he hadn’t taken the two wooden chairs. 

We will still have to figure out how to dispose of them on our own. 

Unless … unless someone wants to come over to our garbage shed and pick out some fine pieces of discarded furniture.

Here’s the thing: There are many people who go through life without much thought for God. Unless … unless something major happens in their lives. Then they sometimes leave something with God in the form of a prayer, or dump something on Him in the form of blame. God wants us to be part of His family all the time, and as part of His family, He is quite happy to accept what we leave with Him. Join God’s family today by putting your faith in Jesus, His Son. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Are you actually in a position to be dumping on God, or do you have a right to leave your burdens with Him? Leave your comments and questions below.