It seems like repurposing (or re-purposing) things has
become a trend. There are so many
pictures of old pallets being repurposed for deck furniture, walls, among many
other uses. Back in the Great
Depression, people didn’t throw many things away because they never knew when
they’d discover a way to repurpose it.
But back then, it wasn’t called repurposing; it was reusing things.
When I was a junior higher back in the 70s, I got
bored during the summer. We had an old,
rusty coaster wagon that was just sitting around the garage because my siblings
& I had gotten too big for it. A
friend of mine had a go-cart that was so cool, and he even let me ride it a few
times. So I decided to repurpose (again,
I’d never heard of that word back then; I thought I was just reusing) some old
stuff laying around the garage. I took
the wheels & axels off the coaster wagon, & attached them to a piece of
plywood the appropriate size. I used a 2
by 2 piece of wood and some clothes line to make a crude steering rod that
could control the direction of the front wheels. The only problem was that we didn’t have an
extra small engine around, & I didn’t have the mechanical ability to put it
on my crude go-cart anyway. But we’d
take turns pulling it uphill a block, & then riding it down the street to
our garage. It was great for going
downhill. I could never think of a way
to make a brake; so we just had to put our shoes out on the pavement to slow it
down to stop. Not the safest, but the hill
wasn’t that steep; so braking wasn’t a problem.
At that point, none of us in the neighborhood had yet been on a fast
amusement park ride; so riding that crude co-cart was a thrill. When my older brother Jim saw what I’d built,
he was impressed with how I’d reused some old stuff from the garage to make
something we could ride on like that.
In the 80s, some of us started recycling as a way to
help the environment, which was a form of repurposing some things. I heard of a guy in Iowa who’d figured out a
way to recycle used plastics into a 4 x 8 sheet the size of a 4 x 8 sheet of
plywood. He’d made a few simple hog
enclosures for them, and began selling those to farmers. He developed it into a small business. As the years went on, more people began finding
new ways to reuse or repurpose used material into a new use. So it’s fairly common now, to find new
recycled things for sale in stores.
God is also in the repurposing business. God specializes in repurposing people. God could take a rejected shepherd (Moses)
and remake him to lead God’s people out of slavery and guide them through the
desert-wilderness. God can take a
shepherd boy named David, and reuse him to kill an agnostic giant and become a
famous warrior-king. Take another look
at the disciples. Jesus repurposed a
fraudulent tax-collector, a terrorist (Simon the Zealot), and uneducated,
undisciplined, crude fishermen like Peter and Andrew, James & John. After the resurrection and the Spirit’s
arrival at Pentecost, these men with dubious backgrounds, became the first
missionary-pastors to a society similar to ours. They went out and taught God’s Word, healed
people, escaped from the authorities who could not get them to stop talking
about this Jesus of Nazareth.
Are you feeling over the hill or washed up? Tired of the daily grind? Do you feel like a used up plastic
bottle? The good news is that you’re a
prime candidate for God’s repurposing.
God specializes in repurposing people who humbly feel like they have
nothing to offer. Matthew had cheated so
many Jewish taxpayers that the priests and religious authorities never bothered
to say anything to him. Simon the Zealot
was part of a group, the Zealots, who were so patriotic that they assassinated
those who publicly disagreed with them; how could God have anything to do with
a murderer like that? Those fisherman
never received any attention from the religious crowd because they were just
blue-collar, working-class people. No
one would have predicted that these guys would be chosen by God’s Son to be
sent out as God’s ambassadors. Yet God saw their potential and repurposed them
to become his representatives to do amazing things in the world. If you think you’re not worthy of God’s call,
you actually are ready for God’s repurposing.
