What's that smell?

We were at my in-laws house and all of the boys were playing with their cousins.  We had traveled for the night to roast some marshmallows and head to a pumpkin patch the next day.

The s'mores were good and sitting by the fire was fun.  But my favorite part was watching the boys and Faith run around and play with their cousins.  They had a blast!

And that's when it hit me!  As the kids came over to roast their marshmallows the odor came over too!  I knew what it was immediately.  We have all smelled that smell before.

I immediately began checking all of the shoes of the kids.  Trying to determine which one had stepped in the dogie doo-doo (sorry...that's the cleanest phrase I could come up with at six in the morning).  To my surprise, all the shoes were clean.  But the smell lingered.

It wasn't until we got inside that we figured out what happened.  The football the kids were playing with had evidently landed in a fresh pile.  My son wiped it off (or so he thought) and then he picked it up and continued to play with it.  Running around and tightly gripping the ball to his chest as others tried to catch and tackle him.  The smell wasn't coming from his shoes, it was coming from his shirt!

Gross, right?

Well, that's the picture the Bible paints about our pursuits.  In Philippians chapter three, Paul outlines all of his reasons for personal pride.  And then he drops this bombshell in verse 7 and 8: But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ...

That word garbage...you guessed it...dog-dung.  Paul made a realization.  Compared to Jesus...all the things he used to hold dear...all the things he used to grip tightly in life were actually dog-dung.  Can you see it?  Or rather, can you smell it?

You and I are made for so much more than this world has to offer.  We are made to be the aroma of Christ!  But if that's going to happen we need to loosen our grip on a few things.

And if we do, maybe next time we're around someone, they'll ask themselves "What's that smell?' ...and it will be a good thing...a God thing even!