When Trash Duty is an Honor

Operation Christmas Child works to spread the tangible love of God by sending millions of shoeboxes full of Christmas goodies all around the world. It’s incredible. This year, we volunteered again at the processing center in Atlanta and we were put on trash duty. 

Do you ever feel like God keeps teaching you the same lesson until you finally (somewhat) get it? This smack-in-the-face came from one of my favorite stories in the entire Bible: 2 Samuel 9. 

Quick summary: King David and Jonathan were in covenant (1 Samuel 18:3). A covenant doesn’t function as a contract; meaning, a covenant is a promise cut between two parties and still stands no matter how the other party acts. And it never expires. In this case, regardless of what happens (like, say… Saul hunting David’s life), they’ll take care of each other and each other’s families. Forever.

Years later, King David wanted to show the kindness of God to the house of Saul (Jonathan’s father). King David didn’t know if anyone was left in the family so he asked Ziba, a servant of Saul, who reported there was one son of Jonathan in Lo Debar who was lame in his feet. Worth noting: Lo Debar translates to “no thing”, meaning it was a nothing town in the middle of nowhere. 

King David sent Ziba to Lo Debar to go find the son, named Mephibosheth, and bring him back to the palace. 

When Mephibosheth came to David, he fell on his face in reverence. Traditionally, kings would wipe out the former dynasty to avoid conflict, but David went against all custom and said, “I want to show you kindness for Jonathan, your father’s sake, and restore to you all the land of Saul, your grandfather, and you shall eat at my table continually.” 

Mephibosheth responded, “Why would you look upon such a dead dog like me?” 

King David called back Ziba, Saul’s servant, and told him he had given Mephibosheth all that belonged to him and his family, and that all Ziba’s 15 sons and 20 servants shall now work the land and bring in the harvest for Mephibosheth, who will now eat at the King’s table forever, just like the king’s sons. 

WILD. Mephibosheth moves from a nothing town in the middle of nowhere to the king’s palace in Jerusalem. Truly, rags to riches and podunk to palace. 

I can resonate with Mephibosheth; once broken, lame, and hiding out in no-man’s-land. The King sought me out, extended His kindness based on covenant, grabbed me by the shoulders, and reminded me of my identity. He escorted me to the King’s table as an heir and nobody noticed my feet were lame when I was seated at His table. 

In our case, God bound Himself in covenant with us and there are no contingency plans attached. He wants His children back and Genesis to Revelation is the record of the chase. Nothing we do or say can break that covenant. 

But now, I can resonate with the honor of being Ziba; a servant sent forth by order of the King to the lowly places to find His sons and daughters and bring them back to the dinner feast. Sometimes, I get to prepare the room for the greatest meeting of Jesus and His bride. Sometimes, I get to stand in the gap between the living and the dead, the lost and the found, and set the table that never runs out of seats. 

And that, my friends, is precisely what I’ve given my life to: going to the broken, hurting, and those who have forgotten their lineage, to remind them of their royal inheritance and usher them to their rightful place at the King’s table. And this will always be the greatest honor of my life.

Sometimes this plays out in the workplace as we invite people to life on mission, reminding them of their royal inheritance at the King’s table.

Oftentimes this plays out at the North Georgia Revival, preparing the room for people to meet Jesus in the water. I have enough stories of what God has done that I can’t be convinced otherwise, and I get to capture them every Sunday night.

And sometimes, it’s serving on trash duty at Operation Christmas Child, removing items we can’t send (like liquids or foods that get donated locally). We’re physically setting the table for others to come meet with the God of provision and love. 

It doesn’t always seem like glamorous work. Where we once had the front-row seat – being overseas, in the baptismal pools, or packing Christmas boxes – now we get to prepare the room for others to meet Him, too. It truly is the greatest honor to scoop people up, remind them of their bloodline because of the covenant, and escort them to the King’s table. We get to play a little role in His big Kingdom, proving nobody is too far gone to access Him. 

Join me in prayer: Lord, thank you for the HONOR to remind Your children of their royal inheritance and escort them back to Your table. May our service be nameless and faceless and your light shine so brightly that we don’t even cast a shadow.