YOU’RE NOT RUBBISH!

I believe it’s a common thing that when you go to a legendary singers’ concert, let’s say Lady Ga Ga for argument’s sake, that they, at some point in the concert, will address the audience and say with the utmost sincerity, “I love you”.

Now, of course, that’s very nice to hear, BUT, it’s best not to take it too personally! If you do, and, on the strength of that manage to evade security; go back-stage; knock on her dressing room door; then tell her, when she opens the door that, “I love you too, Lady Ga Ga”, before then thrusting a bunch of flowers into her bemused face, I suggest it will not end well.

In such an instance, if she is being kind, she will just have time to tell you, before the heavies come to turf you out of course, that she expressed her love to the concert attendees ‘en masse’, all together, as a group, and not to you personally at all, and that she’s sorry if you took it that way but it was not what she meant to imply by what she said. Cue sad violin music as you are dragged away by security.

In life the problem we often experience is that, when it says in John Chapter 3 verse 14, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life”, we often feel God loves us kind of like the manner of Lady Ga Ga at a concert. He loves the world, so, as I am part of the world (along with 8 billion other people), he loves me, but only in that context. For years I could not feel that God’s love to me was personal, and intense and that it was something to be sure of and experience sustaining me every day. How could I? I viewed myself as just one more person amongst 8 billion others on the planet.

But then I had kids! I found that, even as fallible and sinful as I am, I don’t love my kids ‘en masse’, I instead totally love them individually and separately. So, in the same way, God loves every single person in the world, passionately, fully, and totally. Therefore, because he loves everyone individually to such an equal and great extent, it adds up numerically to him loving the whole world. Let that sink in a bit! I’ve often heard it said that, if you were the only person in the history of the world who had ever sinned, Jesus would still have come to earth to die for your sins and set you free. We say it a lot because it’s true. He loves every person as if they are the only person in the world. When it sinks in it’s amazing to think on.

Something illustrated this to me once when a dear friend of mine, who God gives words of wisdom and knowledge to, (this is a special gift God sometimes gives you to share with a person where, although you do not know the detail of their lives or situation, God gives you an insight to their life that you can’t possibly know) shared with me an experience he and his wife had whilst on holiday in Greece.

They had been in the hotel and there was an English woman working in the hotel reception who was clearly married to a Greek man, as her name badge gave her surname as one of those wonderful Greek combinations of surname letters Popadopadopalas, that kind of thing. After a few days of just saying hello as they went to their room, my friend felt God wanted this woman to know something about her life to encourage her that God was real and that he loved her. So my friend and his wife asked to have a word in private with her. She was a bit concerned at first that there was a problem with the hotel or something, but they reassured it was good news and they eventually told her they were Christians and God had given them something to tell her. You can imagine how they must have looked to her can’t you!

My friend told her that he felt that God just wanted her to know that, “You’re not rubbish”. That was all he felt God wanted to say to her at that point. The lady said she would be back in a moment whilst she got a colleague to cover her absence on reception for a few minutes. When she returned, she said, “How do you know my unmarried name?” They explained they didn’t, they just knew her Greek surname from her staff badge.

The lady then told them she was married to a Greek man now, but that her maiden name was in fact, ‘Binns’. She explained that when she was at junior school she was often bullied for her surname by other kids, they called her “Rubbish Bins”. It hurt her a lot and knocked her confidence.

She had an unhealed hurt that she always carried with her that nobody else could see but God knew it was there. He saw her pain in the playground and he also saw how the hurt had affected her. God used a couple to bring healing to the lady that day because he loves her, just like he loves each and everyone of us uniquely. We are all fearfully and wonderfully made!

by Fred Wright 15th Feb 2023