The big bucket of poop
My wife says I can be too crass…🤨 (not to bring you in on our marriage issues LOL) But
I thought this was appropriate!! Fine, Honey, we’ll talk about having a filter next time -haha. Now, onto the article…
Ok, who has a dog out there? …then you know where I’m going with this.
This is our dog poop bucket. It sits hidden on the side of the house. It serves as a final resting home for the plastic bags that have been filled with my dog’s refuse when taking him on a walk.
I hate this bucket.
Yet I appreciate it because it separates the grossness from the other garbage in my garage. I don’t want this stuff any nearer to us than it has to be. Especially during the hot summer months.
Every week it gets dumped into the main garbage the night before, much to the displeasure of the kid who has been bequeathed with the task of doing so. Sometimes it’s so full my little ones have to drag it. Sometimes I drag it too, because I don’t want to pick it up and hold it- I want as little physical contact with it as possible.
As I’ve thought about it, this poop bucket, full of flies, stench, nastiness, stuff nobody wants, represents a lot of the pain and suffering in our lives. We all have a “poop bucket” in our lives that gets filled up. All the junk goes in there like work problems, health problems, financial issues, car repairs, leaky toilets, kids being bullied at school, etc. This bucket is always with us, filled at various levels. Sometimes it’s full to the top, sometimes it’s almost empty (like above). We usually hide our poop buckets- especially as men. We say it’s because we don’t want to bother anyone else with the smell, but it’s really because of our pride. How do I know? Because I do it all the time LOL. We try to spray it with Glade or pretend like it isn’t there. But the smell will gives it away. It never goes away.
So what do we do with the poop bucket of our lives? We drag it over to God and dump it. That’s right. We drag all the pain, sorrow, frustration and smelly rottenness over to God and dump it at His feet. In fact, He invites us to:
“Cast all your burdens upon Him because He cares for you.”
1 Peter 5:7
Lately in prayer, I’ve been thinking at the same time about all of the pain and problems I am aware of in peoples’ lives. It’s a good-sized list. I’ve been metaphorically saying to God : “I drag this poop bucket of problems over to You and ask You for Your healing and rescue.” It’s a way of acknowledging the need for help and finding a release from it by telling God I am giving it to Him; because He asked for it. And why? Because He cares for you and me. Did you catch that? That’s His motivation: care, love, compassion. Incredible isn’t it?! He doesn’t want us lugging that crap around anymore.
A little more theology: Dragging the poop over to God doesn’t mean the poop is gone. I wish it did, and sometimes He does get rid of certain poop, but not always. We’ll never live in a completely poop-less existence until will go to be with Him.
If you’re a dog-owner, you cannot deny the existence of the poop and the poop bucket. It comes with the territory. So it is with life. We cannot deny the existence of the pain and brokenness in our lives BUT we can drag it over to Him. Next time you pray, try dragging your metaphorical bucket of poop over to God, dumping it at His feet, trusting that He really does want you too.
Why? Because He cares about us. He loves us.
Then walk away.
See Honey, that wasn’t too bad was it??? 😉
