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The Dump
By Guy K. Henry
www.guyhenry.com

I liked my old home, but I could not handle the rules. They were too strict. The house was big and comfortable. The yard was wide and green. I had loads of toys and nice things. My father was kind. But I was not happy. I was convinced that outside of this wonderful home was a bigger and better world. I was sure that it would be a world in which I could live by MY rules.

One day I decided to leave. Just as it was getting dark, I quietly went towards the gate. I heard my father. “Guy, Guy, it is time to come inside,” he called.

“There he goes with the rules again!” I sighed. I ignored the call of my father and unlatched the gate.

Soon I was running down the road. Then it occurred to me that my father might come out and look for me. I turned into the dark woods so he would not find me.

The woods were thick, and difficult to walk through. Not only was it hard to make my way, but it was also scary. I had never been in such a thick darkness before. All night I tripped over branches I could not see. There were unexplained noises. Some of them sounded mean. By morning I was scratched up pretty badly by thorns.

I was thankful that the sun was coming up. I had been right. This world was big. Everything was new and a little bit exciting.

About mid-morning I came upon a curious sight. The trees of the forest were behind me. In front of me were mountains of sand and stuff. There was a sign. It read, “CITY DUMP”.

I had never heard of the ‘City Dump’. It sounded interesting. I ventured inside. “Wow!” I exclaimed. “Look at all of this great stuff!”

I explored this fantastic place for hours. By late afternoon I had made a choice. “I think I will live in this place. My new home, The City Dump!”

I needed a house in which to live. “Look at all of those boxes, I could make a nice home out of those!”

I dragged all sorts of boxes and arranged them into a house. It had a front door. When you walked through that you stepped into my living room. Off to the right was my bedroom. There were plenty of windows. I was proud of my new home.

“I need a place to sleep,” I said. I remembered seeing an old mattress in one of the piles of stuff. Soon I found it. I brushed off the dirt and lugged it back to my home. I needed to make my bedroom larger so that the mattress could fit inside it. “No problem,” I cheerfully said, “I’ll just find some more boxes.”

“My home needs some decorations,” I thought. I gathered some of the most colorful tin cans you ever saw, and arranged them all through my living room. Then I found some old newspapers, and made them into a carpet. I used the old supermarket ads to make curtains. Then I stuck lemon peels to the outside walls with wads of gum to give it a nice trim.

“What a great house!” I said to the seagulls. They must have agreed because many of them landed on my home, I suppose to check it out.

“I need a sign!” I announced. I gathered an old broken board and a paint can. With my fingers coated in paint I wrote on the board, “Guy’s House, c/o The City Dump”.

The sign was a very attractive finishing touch to my house. I hoped that other people would see my sign and take a moment to admire my home.

“All this work has made me quite hungry,” I said as my tummy gurgled.

I went outside to a particularly smelly pile of stuff. “I bet I’ll find something good to eat here!” I said.

I dug into the pile and pulled out all kinds of treasures. Then I spied it, a pizza box. “Mmmm!” I said. I pulled out the box and was happy to find two pizza crusts! “Wow, now I’m going to eat like a king!”

With my belly full, I went straight to bed. I would have slept well, except that it rained that night. My walls became soggy, and fell on me. I’d have quite a few repairs to make in the morning.

I found a good breakfast, a rotten banana. It really didn’t taste too nice, but at least I wasn’t hungry anymore!

It was difficult to find dry boxes, since it had rained on the entire city dump. I had to dig deep in the piles of things to find boxes I could use. This was turning out to be a lot of work. I wondered if I one day I should move into one of those rusty cars. “I can only dream,” I whispered.

I didn’t hear the man come up behind me. He was watching me dig for dry cardboard. He cleared his throat, and I jumped. “You scared me!” I said.

“I’m Preacher Gary,” he said. “Do you live here in the city dump?”

I guessed that he came to admire my fantastic home. “I sure do,” I answered as I walked toward my caved in cardboard home.

Preacher Gary’s nose scrunched up. “Guy, do you know that you were not meant to live in the City Dump?”

I picked off a piece of gum from the wall and offered it to Preacher Gary.

“No thank you,” he answered.

“More for me!” I said as I popped the gum into my mouth. “What do you mean, I’m not meant to live here in the City Dump? I like it here.”

“Guy,” he continued, “you have a better home waiting for you. A home with your father.”

Now I was the one scrunching his nose. I waved my arms wide and said, “But I’d have to give up all of this!” Just then another lemon peel fell off of my house.

I stooped down to pick up the lemon decoration. Preacher Gary said, “Your father’s house is where you belong. You’re not missing anything by giving up this house of junk.”

I knew he was right. Since I had left my father’s house many bad things had happened. I’d been scratched up by thorns, rained on, and made sick to my stomach to name a few. It sure hadn’t been as much fun as I had thought it would be.

“Preacher Gary,” I said, “I want to go back, but I am worried that my father will be mad at me.”

Preacher Gary smiled. “I know your father well,” he said, “ and he wants you back in his home, where you belong.”

I had one last excuse. “But Preacher Gary, I am lost. I’ll never find my way back home.”

“Get in my car Guy,” he warmly said, “I’ll show you the way back home.”

Soon Preacher Gary’s car was leaving the dump. We passed underneath the City Dump sign. I had missed my father’s beautiful home more than I realized, and I never missed my house in the City Dump. Preacher Gary was showing me the way back to where I belonged, with my father.

Would it bother you if I said that the place you call home is not where you belong? Would you be mad at me if I compared your home to my junkyard dump house?

I am not trying to get you angry. I intend no insult to your hometown, or your house. I am sure that as earthly places and homes go, yours is most lovely.

The point I am trying to make is that we were never intended to live on this planet, as we know it. When God planned us, it was His desire that we spend our lives in His glorious company.

We were never supposed to spend our time on earth apart from God, suffering pain, sickness, and sadness, and eventually succumbing to death. Something went terribly wrong.

You see, we rebelled. We’ve been breaking God’s rules every day since we were very young. We know what He requires, and yet we continually try things our way, by our own rules. Every time we lie, cheat, steal, show meanness, greed and do other things that the Bible tells us not to, we show God that we think we’ve got a better way. When we disobey God, it is called sin.

Each time we sin, it is like we are running away from the home where we belong. That’s how we ended up in the dump. By our own actions and choices we are separated from God.

The problem is that it is easy to start liking the dump. We look at all we have and begin to become satisfied with it. We don’t belong here, yet we become content with it. When we hear that our Father wants us to come back home, we look at our lives and say, “I can’t give up all of this great stuff!”

It’s not great stuff! To say so is just as weird as being pleased living in a cardboard house in the dump, feasting on pizza crusts and rotten bananas. God has so much better for us.

Imagine no tears, no pain, and no sickness. No broken and weary bones. Living with God is where we were always supposed to be.

What about the sin? Does it just go away? No, it has to be taken away. God knew that we couldn’t erase our own sin, so He sent Jesus to pay our punishment. That is what He was doing when He died on the cross. Jesus never disobeyed God, so He didn’t have to die. He chose to allow Himself to die in our place. That is how He takes away our sin.

The Bible tells us that our part is easy. All that one must do is:

1) Believe that Jesus died on the cross to take your punishment for your sins.

2) Trust that Jesus alone has done that for you. Forget about working to impress God with your good deeds, just trust that Jesus will take you to heaven.

3) Then, ask Jesus to remove every sin from your life.

That’s it. Now that the sin is gone, you can look forward to soon moving back to the home you were meant to live in, with God.
I hope you are ready to give up life in this ‘city dump’, and choose God’s wonderful plan for returning to our real home.

Check out:

2 Corinthians 5:6-8
(6) Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:(7) (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) (8) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

Romans 6:23
(23) For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

John 3:16-17
(16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (17) For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Act 2:21

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