“I think every piece of trash in this neighborhood is dumped on the street. Some piles are higher than the homes!” I stated curiously to an Iraqi Army officer during my initial patrol through Ramadi.
The sight and smell of hundreds of trash piles spread throughout Ramadi was one of the most overwhelming things I’d ever experienced. Years of fighting had forced the city government to shut down trash collection services and prevented citizens from safely moving the garbage to local dumps outside the city. The people literally lived among the trash. They would collect it in their homes, walk outside, and dump it on the street. Some neighborhoods did become large collection sites. The worst was a twenty-foot high wall of trash that lined the outside of a school. During our first several months there, the fighting was too intense to initiate cleanup projects.
The trash piles remained ever present reminders of the insurgency. The enemy loved the trash pile. They were experts at hiding the infamous improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, among the trash. Iraqi soldiers, Marines and often Iraqi citizens were attacked by these hidden dangers, which became symbolic of the evils of Al Qaeda.
The Iraqi citizens obviously did not like the trash piles, but they could do little to correct the situation. Any local leader who protested was often harshly dealt with by insurgent forces. The enemy liked it dirty, because when people saw the oppression and filth, they figured they would taunt us saying, “See, your government and the American Forces are weak. They can’t even pick up the trash! How can they possibly fight us?”
Those trash piles have made me think about how often I’ve let trash pile up in my “spiritual neighborhood” cluttering my life, testimony, and spiritual growth. Satan, like the insurgents, loves trash the places where I hide my deceit, pride, arrogance, lust and selfishness. If I ignore my time with the Lord through prayer and scripture reading (which is my daily garbage clean up), it’s then that I find trash piling up in my life. Only God’s grace, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can provide a routine clean up.
For the Iraqi people, we were finally able to organize huge cleanup efforts that created jobs and returned some normalcy to Ramadi. The Iraqi soldiers found large dump trucks and bulldozers hidden by the enemy and subsequently used them to clean up the neighborhoods. The trucks became something to cheer, not to fear. Hundreds of Iraqi men accepted clean-up jobs. The entire project grew into a phenomenal cleanup effort that brought much joy and pride back to the Iraqi citizens.
Routine cleanups are a good path to peace in life.
God, thank you for the joy and peace that comes when my heart and spiritual life are clean.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23–24)