As I get
older, and can reflect on decades of my life instead of a handful of years, I
look at what really matters to
me. One thing stands out above all other
themes. It has always been about people.
God has made me an otter. Otters are so fun to watch. There is a little zoo in Salisbury that keeps
two otters. When we go to this zoo, the
otters are the one thing we make sure to go see. They play and splash and generally seem to
enjoy a crowd. You never see them
alone. They really enjoy one another’s
company.
So, if I were to be an animal, I
believe that I would be an otter. Just
let me swim with my fellow otters and play and lay in the sun together. Ah, the life.
But, I am not an otter. I am a woman with a God-given heart to love
people. Some may call this a “shepherding”
or “encouraging” bent. I think God just
gave me a passionate love for something He loves passionately too, people.
I live with six other people. My suspicion is that one of them is “otter-like”,
but the others… no. We have great
misunderstandings and hurtful moments here.
But, even though we are not alike in so many ways, we love one another
deeply. This deep love shows when one of
the family is truly hurting.
Recently, we were having constant
episodes of sibling squabbles. I was
wondering what had happened to the compassion in our home. Everyone for himself. No three musketeers motto here. Then, one of the family fell ill.
Almost immediately the other
children rallied around him and the minor irritations that had become major
ones faded away. He received royal
treatment and protection. I had to
console my daughter that this sickness (strep throat) was not “unto death”. They loved one another.
It did my heart good. Although I was
concerned for my son’s health, I was observing the hearts of my other children
as well. Did God use this sickness to
help draw my children’s hearts to one another again? I do not know, but I would like to think that
somewhere, God was pointing my children to one another.
When we see someone we love hurting
and in need, our own love for them should compel us to act. Sometimes we are called to act even when a
loving feeling or emotion is absent. How
can we do this when “we’ve lost that lovin feelin”? The answer, we can’t. But, God does.
This is the love that the world
stands back and tries to comprehend. The
world and those that are lost in the world do not know what to do with a love
that reaches beyond one’s desire for self-preservation and self-love. Those that see this love at work in the lives
of Jesus’ disciples taste and see the cross.
This smell of death that
accompanies the followers of Christ causes an adverse reaction.
But, mingled in this deathly aroma is a sweetness that others can
sense. Once someone smells the sweetness
of the gospel, they want to smell it again, for no other air will be fit for
them to breathe once this perfume lodges in their nostrils. And they find themselves loving what they
once hated and dying to what they once lived for. They find that they can love.
~ Your Fellow Sojourner
[14] But
thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and
through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.
[15] For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved
and among those who are perishing, [16] to one a fragrance from death to
death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these
things? [17] For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as
men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in
Christ.
(2 Corinthians 2:14-17 ESV)
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