Like Easter!Our dog Diamond has a number of amazing talents. She has this trick she does called the 'Diamond Flip' where she runs at us then jumps up off our hips and flips over landing back on her feet. Petty funny and a bit strange all at once. Another talent is that she loves to play hide and seek. She gets to be the all-time seeker and Sherri gets to be the all-time hider, Diamond won't seek anyone else. Anyway, we hold Diamond while Sherri hides and then let her go and she races around the house using her nose to narrow the search until she locates Sherri in a closet or behind the kitchen cabinets. Upon successfully locating Sherri she licks her found prey and wags her tail like crazy.
It's amazing really, how acute a dog's tracking ability is, how refined their sense of smell is. I'm sure your dog has the same amazing sense of smell. I wonder what it must be like for a dog when a smell is strong even for us- like burnt popcorn or that bag of garbage that needs to go out. If it is strong for us it must be over-whelming for them.
I was thinking about this as I considered the Easter season. How the smell of the meaning of Easter is so strong that even those who are agnosticly stuffed-up sense the importance of what is being celebrated. In Romans 1 we learn that God continually makes Himself visible through His creation, which shows His divine attributes- so that they are without excuse for not knowing Him. In other words, the smell of eternity permeates our everyday world not just in fragrant flowers but in gentle breezes, babbling brooks and star-lit nights just for starters.
We were all born with a nose for the eternal. Like Diamond, we were born with an innate ability, in our case an ability to recognize the scent of God, to know He exists and loves us, to recognize the work of His hands and to be able to find Him in all these works of creation. And I believe the Easter season only makes the aroma of the eternal stronger. Spring comes, the air warms and God begins to color the canvas of His world with bold strokes of new life. The Easter true-life good news Gospel story of Jesus' resurrection waifs through the spring air like the smell of a refreshing rain that makes you feel warm inside.
And maybe I feel this way because I am a Christian, believing that Easter joy brings with it hope (a sure confidence of salvation), grace, love and so much more. In addition, I believe God's presence is indeed obvious from creation, I see Him in it all the time and thank Him often. That said, I still believe Easter tugs at the heart of every non-believer through the power of the Holy Spirit with greater force than usual.
Why? First, because of the purpose and greatness of Jesus' resurrection. What an awesome act on our behalf giving us eternal life. And secondly, and the real point of my thought here, because the aroma of Easter is to come through us. We are at our most excited and faithful it seems when we celebrate all that Easter means to us. 2Corinthians 2:14 tells us, "God also helps us spread the knowledge about Christ everywhere, and this knowledge is like the smell of perfume." We're called to be holy skunks of a sort, spraying our joy and faith wherever we go.
My prayer is that we each meet this Biblical challenge, that our Easter joy will be used by the Holy Spirit to help others pick up on the sweet aroma of faith and being a child of God. Let's be like middle school boys who douse themselves in Tag or Axe body wash, let's be fully doused in the 'knowledge about Christ', the sweetest of all perfumes. May God bless you with a wonderful Easter and an aroma of faith and joy that lasts a lifetime and an eternity!
Your 'Old Spice' Friend,
Keith
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