The smell took me back.
Until my wife came
along, I had used bar soap. She was a liquid soap user, so I also adopted the
liquid soap craze. But for many years, bar soap was the norm. Liquid soaps were
not mass-produced for domestic use until the 1980s when Minnetonka Corporation
of Minnesota released its Softsoap. That sounded about right when I researched it.
I sure don’t remember using liquid soap when I was growing up.
Not long ago, while
visiting the local grocery store for some items, I walked to the pharmacy
department. Sure enough, they sat on the shelf as I remembered—three bars of
Ivory soap, packaged together. I picked them up and ran them beneath my nose.
The smell took me back.
Back to a time when I was a young boy taking baths instead of showers. Back to
the time when I stayed with my grandparents in Orangeburg and in Vance, South
Carolina. I would run the bath water, jump in, wet the washrag, and look for
the bar of soap. Ivory soap, of course. This was the cleanest smelling and very
useful because it floated.
No matter how clean I
was, the water soon turned dingy when I sat in it. Finding a bar of soap proved
difficult. I remember running my hand beneath my body and around the bottom of
the tub, trying to find the soap. But not if it was Ivory. Since it floated, I
could quickly locate it. When I finished my bath—no matter how dirty or clean I
had been when I started—I smelled clean.
As I ran those three
bars of soap beneath my nose that day in the grocery store, I remembered those
days. I bought the soap and began using it again. I also put bars in soap
dishes and placed one in our bathrooms and kitchen. When I washed my hands, I
could inhale the smell again.
Amazing what smells can
do. For Isaac, it identified his son—or so he thought. Prior to his death, when
the time came for him to give his final blessing to his firstborn, he told Esau
to kill some wild game, prepare it, and bring it to him. He would eat it and
bless him.
But Jacob, the younger
brother and a trickster, dressed as his brother, prepared game, and took it to
his father. Blindness initially confused Isaac, but the smell of the outdoors
convinced him it was Esau—although we know better from reading this story of
deception.
With spiritual living,
smell is also important. Whether I smell clean because I just bathed with Ivory
soap or whether I smell raunchy because I just helped give shots to hogs in a
muddy, smelly pen isn’t the issue. I can smell foul physically but good
spiritually.
Actions, words, and
attitudes determine our spiritual smell. And when they align with God’s Word,
people smell a wonderful aroma from us. We might not be in style with clothes
or have the latest and greatest play toys, but others will get a good smell
from being around us. Not with their noses, mind you, but with their eyes and
ears. They will smell Jesus. And after all, that’s what Jesus said his
followers were supposed to do: smell good.
What are some ways you
can smell better to others?
Father, may my aroma draw others to you.
Tweetable: How do you smell to others?
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