Last Friday night, on my way back from youth group’s game night, my car radio was on all the time. I was not paying attention to the message, however, because of the distractions inside my car. In the middle of the broadcasting, the preacher popped a phrase that I haven’t never heard before. He said, “God does not make junk”. I find this is an interesting and enlightened one.

In general, “junk” means secondhand goods, rubbish or cheap stuff, or meaningless talks. Connotation wise, it could mean “unwanted” or “useless” stuff. I don’t know how many junk mails you received each day, in my case, at least 60% of our daily mails are in “junk” category.  Sometimes, it is hard for me to imagine why there are so many people interested in creating “junks”.

When the preacher said “God does not make junk”, he hinted two aspects to us. Firstly, he hinted that God is the maker – He has the ability to make something. In fact, the Scripture clearly tells us that God is the creator of the universe (Genesis 1:1). No wonder psalmist said, “Let all the earth fear the LORD and let all the people of the world revere Him. For He spoke, and it came to be 願全地都敬畏耶和華‧願世上的居民都懼怕祂‧因為他說有、就有。(Psalms 33:8-9a).” Secondly, the preacher indicated that God’s creation was “good” not “junk”, because “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. 神看著一切所造的都甚好(Genesis 1:31a) ”.  

Based on God’s view, we can deduce that the creation of Adam and Eve was good and there is nothing to fuss about.  The trouble comes when Adam and Eve decided to act against God’s will, their perfectness of creation was blemished. As a result, sin enters into this world and we have sickness, genetic defects and death, etc.  Once a while you may hear this kind of comment, “I was born to be like this 我天生就是這樣” with a sarcastic tone. It has the smell of dissatisfaction against himself / herself. As the defects are so common among us, we have to call ourselves the “normal” human being.

Has God done nothing but let us to spiral down after Adam and Eve’s fall? If this is the case, then junks we shall be. The truth is He didn’t, the Bible told us that we are apples in His eye and we are precious to Him. He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to deliver us from the bondage of sins, preventing us from spiraling down to “unwanted junks”. As such, we can ask the question, “How precious are we in God’s eye?” The answer is it is as precious as His son’s blood! 

My dear brothers and sisters, it is God’s love and our Lord’s grace that we can be saved. Consequently, can we consider ourselves junk? Certainly not! Can we say God makes junk?” By no means! May we remind one another that we are precious ones!