The aroma snapped my head around to find the origin. It was definitely lilac. Hurray! Spring had arrived. The smell reminded me of Spring evenings when my son was young as the aroma from our Korean Lilac bush drifted through the back door.
Smell has a powerful effect on our memories and emotions. The smell of a fresh box of crayons makes me think of new beginnings. Guess the first day of school was a positive experience in my childhood.
“Thanks be to God...”
I’ve been thinking about what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 2:14-15. There is a “fragrance” in knowing God. It’s a pleasant experience and it reaches into our emotions. Verse 14 reminds me that it’s a triumphant experience because God leads me and because there are many others in procession with me.
...spread the fragrance of knowing Him...
There is also a challenge in these two verses. The challenge to diffuse God’s saving “fragrance” to those arround us. There will be two reactions to our “fragrance.”
We should remind those around us of God’s justice and God’s salvation. In a world of chaos, where too often evil seems to triumph, God is the final administrator of justice. Some will not receive His authority so to them we don’t smell fragrant. Rather we smell like death, as the scripture says.
To fellow believers, we have the familiar fragrance of relationship with God. We are joined in that triumphant procession with God leading us.
How do I smell?
I pause to ask myself, does my life, as it is lived before others, trigger emotion and memory for God?
When you open the refrigerator and ask what is that smell? You hunt! You keep emptying containers and drawers until you find the source of that bad odor!
Maybe as Christians, we should be the triggers to spark the hunt for God, the fragrance of knowing Him.
Smell has a historical role of survival. We smell food when we are hungry. We smell fire and know there is danger.
Again, this morning I was alerted to the smell of lilacs. It had rained. Sometimes rain accentuates the aromas. Perhaps it’s a matter of the rain clearing away distracting smells to allow the fragrance to dominate.
Sometimes, life’s circumstances (the rains) may accentuate God’s fragrance and our need to know Him more. That is true survival, to live life with God leading the procession in the company of our fragrant friends. So when life’s circumstances happen, “follow your nose” to find God. He and other believers are saving your place in the procession!
S eek to bring God honor
M ake your witness a priority
E liminate distractions from your relationship with God
L ive life the way God intends
L et the world know of this saving “fragrance”.
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