'Pen and Ink 

A couple of the symptoms that some people contracted during covid was the loss of their sense of taste and smell. Maybe sometimes we take these things for granted until we are affected and then we find out just how important they are to our daily lives.   I was reminded about our sense of smell just the other day when I was outside the house and was faced with a rather unpleasant odour. In cockney rhyming slang the words used are “it pen and inks”, in other words it stinks!
 
The problem was that our drain gulley had become blocked and had overflowed onto the ground around the drain. This gulley has the waste pipe from the kitchen sink, so you can imagine all that goes into the drain. There is soap residue, washing-up liquid, grease from plates, washing of dirty hands and even washing out paint brushes! By the time it all laid there becoming more and more stagnant and unpleasant, the smell had somewhat increased!
 
You might ask, what has this got to do with a ‘thought for the week’. Well, I got to thinking about our lives and how they smell. Do our lives reflect Christ living in us and so have a beautiful fragrance to our Heavenly Father, or is the fragrance not so good?
 
In the Bible incense is often used to denote a fragrant offering to God and so we read in Psalm 141:2 “May my prayer be counted as incense before You, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” Here the act of prayer is compared to the pleasing smell of incense offered to God.  Now that is our personal sweet aroma to God, as we lift our hearts and hands to Him.
 
Also, in 2 Cor 2:15 it says, “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.” To God, believers are a, “pleasing aroma of Christ” as we bring the Good News of Jesus to those we meet and come into contact with every day.
 
How do you think you smell to God?!