BRAGFUL BAGFUL

Ever wonder what a bagful of dust can do?

Give it form and it becomes one bragful handful:

That's precisely what we are---dust in all its glory. Remember? God formed man from dust, breathed life into it, and behold, Adam! We were "it" before we became "he" or "she."

I initially struggled with this thought; but God's truth is inescapable, as bright as the morning light. 

I witnessed "someone" or "somebody" turn to "something" at the cremation chamber.  At our life's end, really,  what we become is just a bagful of dust forever trapped underground, an urn, or thrown into the ocean  to be lapped up by tiny phytoplanktons. 

Imagine yourself as fodder for phytoplanktons

Imagine, a once mighty hunk who used to be adored by millions, or a strongman who once controlled a nation, becomes a nano chunk of lifeless floaters for the lowliest in the food chain!

"All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return," says King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3:20.

The richest, greatest and wisest king who ever lived---after lusting for and possessing everything he ever desired in his lifetime---one day reached a verdict: "Everything is meaningless, a chasing after the wind."

The same uh-oh-I-told-you-so conclusion we gulp down whenever we reach a dead-end, a tragic loss or death itself. I-me-and-myself-centered, one wakes up one day to the cold reality:

You're the createe and you have a creator. More to the point, without your creator's grace, you're minced meat.

Come to think of it, the most of yucky, disgusting, gross (the litany of adjectives is endless) things happening in the world today could be traced back to immense bagfuls of prideful dust asserting themselves or trying to lord it over other prideful dust clumps:


"I know better." Mine is the better alternative." "I'll have my way no matter what." "I'll be rich, never mind if I cross the line."

Seat of power or center of division and inaction?

Politicians endlessly filibuster while their governments and their governed wait with bated breath for their lives to turn the bend. 

Salaried men acquire-acquire-acquire only to see their very beds pulled from under them. 

Illicit drugs have become some economies' bread and butter, the daily snort of clueless victims across the earth. 

HIV has reached pandemic proportions, yet supposed experts look to solutions only in "safe sex" plus their incessant search for its cure, instead of promoting righteous living and a return to the truth: That John could not be Joannie, nor Paulette, Paul; or that your biographer (even if she adores you) could not be in the same bed with you (because your only bedmate is your wife).

And if I may add, global warming didn't just happen. We all made it happen!


A dust storm. That's what a lot of dust create. With wind and varying temperatures as their ally, sand in the Sahara or other drylands work up giant storms enough to suffocate life, cause diseases to spread, and even deaden agriculture due to topsoil erosion. 

My, my, some real sandstorm we've heaped upon one another! 

But God is quite patient with us, patiently gluing and molding and breaking and remolding this clayey lump of dust so that we can become vessels of honor instead of dishonor. 

In John 11:26, Jesus tells Martha, "Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die."

I am not just dirt. The real me could not be contained. Though death reduces me to a bagful, the real me will be with Jesus in heaven for eternity. What a sobering thought.

So if you think you're just fodder for lowlife planktons, rejoice. He came to set lowlifers free. 

But that's true too for the pasaway (rebellious), the basagulero (fight-monger), the bum, the self-righteous, the sex-starved, the liar, the dishonest, the corrupt. The bible lumps us all in one. 

"There is no one righteous, not even one" (Romans 3:10). Everyone's a dirt bag. 

But that shows us the breadth and depth of His love! Jesus died for all of us, that those who believe in him might not just be fodder for worms or planktons, but alive in Him forevermore--- even after our earthly life.

Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”  (John 11:25,26)

If you believe this and have never confessed Jesus as your Lord and Savior, pray: "Father, I am a sinner. Forgive me. I confess Jesus as my Savior and Lord. Holy Spirit dwell in me and lead me. Help me to obey and do what is right according to your Word, not what the world dictates. In Jesus name, amen."

Though dust, you can now be trusted with His wisdom, and be a change agent in this dust bin of a world.