The Village of Winfield celebrated one of my favorite holidays this past week—Spring Clean-up Week, or in the vernacular of the village residents, free trash day. Ours was Thursday, and if our trash followed the regular bundling rules and SBC Waste Solution's request to not put out more than four-cubic yards of material, we could take anything we wanted to the curb.

We put out our garbage on Wednesday afternoon, and right on schedule, the metal-collecting trucks came through the neighborhood. Our broken pole lamp was snatched up minutes after we put it on the curb. There is money to be made in trash, I suppose. And by Thursday afternoon, all of it was gone.

Wouldn’t it be great if life came with a week of free trash collection? On Monday, I would drag complaining to the curb, then on Tuesday, out with gossip. Wednesday, I would unload selfishness. Thursday, I would hurry to take impatience to the garbage, and on Friday I would congratulate myself on getting pride to the curb. Then, magically, everything would disappear, never to be bothered by it again.

Or not, as I realize my decision to throw out pride maxed out the four-cubic yards limit. Who knew that it would take up that much space in my garbage pile. Then I spotted the solution—the empty recycle bin, and in goes pride for another use.

Even though I know it’s just trash, it’s hard to resist another look at my stash to make sure there isn’t anything else I could recycle. Gossip to be reused in small groups or at lunch with a friend. I poke at selfishness—it still is my time, my treasure and my talents, my life, my way. And before I know it, the recycle bin is full and the curb is empty.

The only hitch on Spring Clean-up Day is that no one sees the flowering trees or early spring flowers in the neighborhood. All we notice is the trash on the curbs. Same for my life when I take control of it—the trash becomes obvious, no matter how hard I try to dump it only to end up recycling it, only to dump it again.

God knows this dump-recycle-dump pattern of his followers, and our need for grace, our need to “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2)—or on the curb.

The greatest gospel truth is not how much trash we can drag to the curb on self-designated trash collection days, but how wide, how long, how high and how deep is Jesus’ love for us. Gospel grace keeps us from recycling the detritus of our lives and helps us put on tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and love (see Colossians 3:12-14, NLT).

And it is by God's grace that when free trash collection week rolls around next year, I won't have as much to drag to the curb or to recycle, and people will see the beautiful Savior and his free, lavish grace.