Tag: Refreshing

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Just a Whiff

The smells of life. They are all around us. Some good, some not so good. Smelling the savory smell of good food, flowers in a garden, or the scent of a candle in a store or home, immediately grabs our attention. There are smells we totally miss, and I was unaware I was missing them until we got our little convertible. Now it’s one of our favorite things about our little car. Driving along we will occasionally get a whiff of freshly cut grass, a backyard fire, a barbecue, or the fragrance of a flowering tree. It immediately arrests our attention and stops the conversation; all we want to do is take in the scent. Smells can take us back to special moments in our lives or days gone by. Almost every smell has a story. Imagine smelling the fragrance of the perfume that Mary poured on Jesus’ feet. A stale old room filled with sweaty people is suddenly overwhelmed by an aroma that is pleasant and refreshing. Even if you missed the moment when she anointed his feet, you were instantly aware by the fragrant change that now fills the room. I would imagine that from that day forward, any time anyone caught a scent of that amazing moment, instantly had a flashback to Mary’s amazing act. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:15, “we are the sweet smell of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are being lost.” Whether we realize it or not, each day we put off a scent, a smell of God’s glory or the smell of this world. One is pleasant and refreshing, the other often old and unpleasing. Why do we need a regular time of prayer? It’s where we get the anointing that gives us the right scent. Prayer ensures that our family, friends, and the world we walk in gets the right whiff.

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Embrace the Wind

Wind, we can’t see it, but we can hear it when it blows through a grove of trees, and we can definitely see its aftereffects. This weekend, here in central Indiana, wind pretty much ended fall, stripping trees of their beautiful color. More powerful winds bring tornados that wreck havoc. Set along a southern coast, and you might experience the powerful impact of a hurricane that changes the landscape of life. In the summer there’s nothing like a gentle breeze to take the heat of the day away, yet when that same wind blows in the winter, it makes cold turn to frigid. Though no one has ever seen wind, everyone would acknowledge it exists. In John 3:8, Jesus is explaining the Spirit to Nicodemus and compares it to the wind. He says you can’t see it; you don’t know where it comes from, nor where it’s going, but there is no doubt when you have experienced it. In a world that wants everything explained and leaves very little room for the supernatural, Jesus is letting us know that if we are going to experience the power of the Spirit, we’re going to have make room for the unexplainable, yet undeniable. It’s not coincidental that Jesus uses wind to explain the Spirit. When a move of the Spirit blows into a life, family, or church it does exactly as wind. It can be a refreshing breeze. A wind that strips away the unnecessary junk clinging to our lives or tornadic power that changes the landscape of our lives. In Acts 2, the Spirit stripped away the guilt of failure and fear of religion. In Acts 3, Simon Peter describes the coming Spirit as “a time of refreshing,’ and in Acts 17, the town said of the disciples, “these are they who have turned the world upside down. Pray that God will let us experience His sovereign, unexplainable, yet undeniable wind of the Spirit.