What People See And Smell!
What do you see and smell when you look at the people around you? I think we all make a kind of appraisal without even thinking about it. We may like or dislike what we see, it seems that people give off an odor; some smell good some smell bad.
Sometimes it’s a slow cautious process. It might take some time before we like or dislike a person’s odor. We seem to make a decision without thinking about it: is this a person I want to be around, or a person I want nothing to do with?
I remember a couple of years ago at a meeting in Wisconsin a young man made a comment to me after the meeting. He said, “You are strange”. I don’t think he meant it as a put down or anything like that. I guess he couldn’t figure out my smell. I did not fit into any of his boxes. He could not quite figure me out. Was I real or artificial?
What do people see when they see you? Do they see a person who has come to grips with life and is making the best of it? Do they see a person who is at peace and a person they would like to know better? Do they see a person who loves, and is kind and considerate of folks around them?
As you continue on in your spiritual journey you will find it affects how you see people, and how they see you. Some who were good friends will not have much to do with you anymore, and some you did not want much to do with before, now become your best friends. Surprisingly, it might be church and religious friends who turn their face from you; remember it was religious people who had a problem with Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 2:15-16
For we are a fragrance of Christ to God, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma of death to death, to the other an aroma of life to life. And who is adequate for these things
As Christ is being formed in us, others see us differently; the odor of life and death become stronger. Don’t be alarmed or offended of if some stay their distance, it is not your odor that bothers them, it is the odor of Christ being formed in you.