[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"\u002Farticles\u002Fdown-in-the-dumps":3,"\u002Farticles\u002Fdown-in-the-dumps-surround":60},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"bibleBooks":8,"body":11,"columnName":43,"date":44,"description":17,"extension":45,"image":46,"meta":47,"minRead":48,"navigation":49,"path":50,"postType":51,"publication":52,"publicationUrl":46,"seo":53,"stem":54,"topics":55,"__hash__":59},"blog\u002Farticles\u002Fdown-in-the-dumps.md","Down in the Dumps",{"name":7},"Dave Faust",[9,10],"Romans","Lamentations",{"type":12,"value":13,"toc":39},"minimark",[14,18,21,24,27,30,33,36],[15,16,17],"p",{},"Ever since he was very young, my son Matt has enjoyed drawing cartoons and writing stories. By the time he was 10 years old, he had collected a pile of papers a foot thick, covered with everything from silly doodles to childlike but serious poetry. In fact, the pile had grown so large that my wife Candy insisted that he should sort through the papers and throw away everything he didn't need to keep.",[15,19,20],{},"One evening, the two of them spent a couple of hours in his room, laughing and admiring the things Matt had written, and sorting scraps of paper into two piles—one to keep and one to throw away.",[15,22,23],{},"Since the next day was trash collection day, I awoke early in the morning and dutifully put the garbage cans out by the curb, including a plastic recycling bin filled with trash from Matt's room. What I didn't know was, Candy and Matt had put the good papers in the plastic bin! When Matt returned from school in the afternoon, he discovered my mistake: I had thrown out all of the cartoons and stories he'd spent years writing!",[15,25,26],{},"My heart sank when Candy called me at work to tell me the news. By the time I returned home that evening, I was feeling terrible, thinking there was nothing anyone could do. But never underestimate a mom's love and perseverance. Candy and Matt had driven to the garbage dump, an enormous pile of rubbish outside of Cincinnati. They explained their dilemma to a sympathetic but skeptical sanitation official, who pointed them in the general direction where the truck assigned to our neighborhood had dumped its trash earlier in the day. Holding their noses, Candy and Matt picked their way through the rubbish until, amazingly, they found Matt's papers—a bit crumpled and soiled, but salvageable nonetheless. By the time I got home from work, Candy and Matt's rescue expedition was already over and his cherished papers were nestled safely back in his room.",[15,28,29],{},"What kind of love could cause a mom to attempt something that seemed as impossible as finding a needle in a haystack? What made her tackle the distasteful task of wading into a garbage dump to rescue some papers that meant a lot to her son? What kind of love sees something valuable in a trash heap?",[15,31,32],{},"Come to think of it, what kind of love moved the Lord Jesus to exchange the golden streets of Heaven for the gutter of Golgotha? Why come to the dump when you can stay in the palace? It's messy down here. It stinks. You're going to get your hands dirty if you live on a sin-stained planet and rub shoulders with folks like us. Why should God care so deeply about people who have failed so miserably and wandered so carelessly from the path of purity and righteousness?",[15,34,35],{},"In a world that measures success by fleeting standards like diplomas and dollar signs—where failure seems final and foul-ups look fatal—we have a lot to learn about the love and grace of God. God demonstrated this love by sending his Son to die for us \"while we were still sinners,\" and his love is so strong, so patient, so persevering, that nothing in all creation can ever \"separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord\" (Romans 5:8; 8:38, 39).",[15,37,38],{},"We all have failed, but the Lord has not and will not. \"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail\" (Lamentations 3:22). That's good news for all of us who spend time down in the dumps.",{"title":40,"searchDepth":41,"depth":41,"links":42},"",2,[],"From the Editor's Desk","2000-05-28","md",null,{},4,true,"\u002Farticles\u002Fdown-in-the-dumps","column","The Lookout",{"title":5,"description":17},"articles\u002Fdown-in-the-dumps",[56,57,58],"Biblical Theology","Perseverance in Suffering","Spiritual Formation","z8V6hDe18NPuLbfC2gCw9uQT5a3YLTzn1cpx0pkQ_cs",[61,66],{"title":62,"path":63,"stem":64,"description":65,"children":-1},"Don't Throw Away the Scale","\u002Farticles\u002Fdon-t-throw-away-the-scale","articles\u002Fdon-t-throw-away-the-scale","After years of faithful service, our family's bathroom scale broke the other day. A spring inside must have snapped, for the dial suddenly registered about 300 pounds and wouldn't budge. I threw the scale away, but I was sad to see it go. Since the dial read \"5 pounds\" even when no one was standing on it, I figured it always overestimated my weight—which made it easier to feel light-hearted even after a heavy meal. Plus, our scale could make a person seem 10 pounds lighter if you simply leaned forward on your toes while standing on it. In the old scale's place now sits a sleek new model, which has the annoying characteristic of being completely accurate.",{"title":67,"path":68,"stem":69,"description":70,"children":-1},"Drowning in Chicken Soup","\u002Farticles\u002Fdrowning-in-chicken-soup","articles\u002Fdrowning-in-chicken-soup","First the good news: Despite a lot of pessimistic warnings about the secularization of America, spiritual hunger hasn't disappeared from our culture."]