Garbage Picker Vision

You never know when my wife is going to have one of her attacks. We’ll be driving through our town and suddenly she’ll yell, “Stop!” I used to think I’d run over something. Now I know she has seen some furniture setting out by the street, waiting for the garbage man to come for it. Sometimes I’ve been able to convince her to come back after dark for it, at least—I’d love for all my friends to see me raiding someone else’s trash. But we have furnished a lot of our ministry offices and our house with some of that stuff we stopped for—after Karen has worked her amazing restoring touch on it, it looks pretty good. See, my wife is what is known as a garbage picker. She will look at some old piece of furniture and see something the rest of us just don’t see.

Jesus has the amazing ability to look at people like my wife looks at furniture on the garbage pile. Our word for today from the Word of God, John 1:40-42 says, “Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah.’ And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas (which, when translated, is Peter).’” That name means “the rock”.

Interesting. When everyone else looked at Simon, they saw an erratic fisherman. Jesus saw a rock. Now I’m married to someone who can see past what’s broken and ugly—and see what it could be. That was the wonderful vision Jesus saw through His eyes.

When He met John, he was known as the “son of thunder”—and we see some of John’s temper when he wants to call down fire on a Samaritan village. But years later, this one who had been the “son of thunder” was known to the whole early church as the apostle of love. Jesus took a demon-possessed woman of the street and made her into Mary Magdalene, perhaps His most loyal and devoted follower.

In Zaccheus, Jesus saw beyond the garbage of his greed and dishonesty—and saw a man who could really be a somebody by giving, not taking.

And that’s how Jesus looks at you. Maybe others only see what’s broken and ugly, but He sees what you can be with His tender, transforming care. He sees what you were created to be. And He wants us to develop that kind of garbage picker vision in other people.

Jesus is calling parents to look past the garbage a child may be giving out—and see what could be…to tell them about their potential, not just tell them about their problems. Jesus calls you to be a friend, a leader, a helper who says to people—not “you’re a mess”—but “You’re better than this. I see in you a treasure God created. I see behind that mask a person who’s really sensitive…or insightful…a leader…a great listener…a generous person…a fighter for what’s right.

Somewhere near you is a Simon waiting for someone to see the Peter, the rock, in him or her. Be the one who stops for someone that others may be throwing away, giving up on, writing off. Pick them up…show them what they could be…and patiently build them into all they were meant to be. Like Jesus is doing for you.

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