Fragrance...

(The jasmine that winds its way up my back steps! This is only one plant! Wish you could smell through the picture! ;O) )

I love living in Georgia. I was born and raised in Canada, but my mom is originally from Nashville. While I loved living in Canada and I miss it at times, Georgia really is where my heart is. I even did a quiz on Facebook one day and it said I was 100% Georgian through and through! Kinda funny, huh?

The one thing I struggle with living here, though, is the heat! It starts getting hot pretty early in the year and by August I am ready to rip my hair out I am so tired of sweating. That's why I have been so happy this week...we have a rare cold front that made its way through and stayed and I am loving it. My family is freezing because I have all the doors and windows open, but they can put on more clothes. I am going to take full advantage of this last blast of cool, dry air.

Aside from the cool, fresh air, I am loving the fragrance of the jasmine and gardenias wafting through the open windows. As I lay in bed, a breeze will blow and in it comes, delighting my sense of smell. It's one of those smells that, as I go about my day, comes to me unbidden and makes me stop and trace its origin.

I was sitting here this morning, once again deeply inhaling the inviting scent, when I remembered this scripture...

2 Cor. 2:14 & 15 ~ But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life.

Don't you love it? Don't you love how God uses word pictures that He knows will one day come back to us at an unordained moment and gives us something to ponder?

Just as my most favourite fragrances dance around me and create a longing in me for more, our lives are to do the same for those around us. We can be so steeped in Christ and His aroma that we entice and draw others into a search for Him...a longing to inhale more deeply from all that He has to offer. It can only come from time spent with Him, allowing Him to infuse us with His fragrance.

It's time to do a smell check! What kind of fragrance do I meet others with? The fragrance of Christ rising out of time spent in intimacy with Him or that which may have once been something sweet, but has been allowed to rot and create a stench?

Ephes. 5:2 And walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.