I was recently reading an article about how our sense of smell is strongly intertwined with our memories and emotions. This isn’t big news to most of us and it’s the reason I’ve consistently worn the same perfume for years. I want the people in my life to remember me every time they catch of whiff of Obsession.
Strangely enough, I’ve realized that even bad smells can be tied to good memories. I’ll never forget, for example, the scent that wafts through a van when it’s full of adolescent boys who’ve just played basketball. It’s a “fruity essence” I experienced many times as I drove my sons’ middle school teams to out-of-town games in our big gray van. Those were good times and it was often hilarious to listen to the banter in that van, so sweaty-boy smell is actually, believe it or not, happily nostalgic for me.
That’s a very good thing because I have three young grandsons now and the oldest is beginning to exhibit some of the cringe-worthy hygiene habits pre-teen males are so famous for. Just recently, in fact, my son texted me to share a funny anecdote illustrating this very thing.
It seems my grandson was about to take a shower, for which he does get good hygiene credit, even though he recently confessed he never actually uses soap. When his parents reminded him where the clean towels were stored, he replied, “I don’t need one; I have my own towel.”
This, my son said, opened up a discussion during which it was revealed that my grandson had been using an old pool towel he’d kept lying around in his room, unwashed and definitely never hung up to dry, for heaven-only-knows how many months. His reasoning? He said he couldn’t imagine ever needing a clean towel since the towel only ever touches his clean body. Makes sense, I guess, in the mind of a boy, but those of us with fully-formed brains realize it’s kind of yucky.
I don’t think boys necessarily intend to be stinky or dirty; maybe they just vastly overestimate their own cleanliness. And maybe so do some of us adults, at least when it comes to our spiritual status, if we wrongly assume our good works make us clean in the eyes of God.
God wasn’t joking when He included this verse in His Word: “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment” (Isaiah 64:6).
Does that mean we shouldn’t do good and righteous deeds? Nope, we’re told to do good works. But we can’t use those to buy a ticket to heaven because verses like Ephesians 2:8-9 make it clear we’re not saved by our works. If our good deeds were actually good enough, Jesus wouldn’t have had to die in our place to pay the debt our sin racks up.
The good news of the Gospel is that if we believe Jesus alone paid our debt to God, His perfect behavior is credited to our account. What a deal! Where we once smelled like an unwashed, mildewed pool towel because of our sins, our faith in Christ mysteriously gives us His beautiful fragrance.
I do hope my loved ones think happy thoughts about me whenever they smell Obsession, but my real hope is the sure knowledge that God accepts me because He smells the fragrance of His Son covering me from head to toe.
?“He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He richly poured out upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior … .” – Titus 3:5-6