What a captivating fragrance!

The fragrance caught my attention before I looked up.

Just walking through my new neighborhood. Enjoying the beauty of the sunny day and the woods all around. The blue skies. The fresh air on my face. The crunch of gravel under my feet. A most pleasant passage of time. Then this most amazing, appealing fragrance! - caused me to look up. These gorgeous hanging clumps of purple petals, dancing in the gentle breeze. Their scent drew me in to their even greater beauty. All my senses engaged. I was transported to a most lovely place. In that moment all that existed - me and the pretty world surrounding me. Filling me. Certainly affecting the way I am experiencing life; how I’m seeing my life. Confirming to me that God is so good!

God calls us to be like a flower. Well, He calls it salt and light (Matthew 5:13-14). But it’s all the same. Being salt and light (or a flower) is a representation of the God we know and love. And is a fragrance of Him to all those we encounter. That’s why it is so important to be this, do this. Yes, it may uplift another by being good, kind, generous, patient - nice. But more importantly, it is a display of God’s nature, His character. It is your “fragrance” that may cause someone to “look up”. To see God in a new way, or re-experience Him afresh, or even experience Him for the first time.

I won’t be able to pass another fragrant flower without thinking about this. As spring approaches and flowers start blooming where you live, I hope you think about this too.

Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread everywhere. - Song of Songs 4:16

May the Holy Spirit breathe new energy into you, that your walk in this world be as appealing and as captivating as these flowers were to me.

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. - John 12:3

Be that flower. Be that fragrance.

God will surely empower you… for it is His heart’s desire that all may know Him.