The Aroma of God.

I had found my seat and made small talk with my neighbours for a bit until the show began. Ready for a good time, I looked forward to the concert seemingly oblivious to my surroundings once the lights went down and the music started.
I was sitting behind a woman at the concert that night, and as the first song finished and the second began, I found myself distracted by her perfume.
She was several years older than me, so it wasn't one of those predictable, cutesy scents out there endorsed by some celebrity who neither really wears it, nor does it smell good on anyone ~ they're usually just a variation of musky fruits and alcohol sold to teens for way more than its value.
No, it was a mature, intoxicating scent that wouldn't be ignored.
I was embarrassed by my attraction to the scent and its wearer. But I couldn't help but be diverted by it throughout the concert.
At the intermission, I found myself approaching her to enquire what scent it was ... I had to know the name of that which compromised my enjoyment of the show.
Something funnily coincidental, however, was the fact that particular night I wasn't wearing any [pleasing] scent, and I hadn't showered that day. This perfume made me keenly aware of my own stink :( so at the break I rushed off to put on some deodorant I had for emergencies in order to help make me similar in scent.
It was beauty, and I was not ... I wanted to be so.
In our day to day lives, you don't expect epiphanies to be visited upon you when you're doing something seemingly ordinary, but, that's what makes it an epiphany. You have to be prepared to have God interrupt you when he wants you to be aware of something. Especially when you're not expecting it; he loves to do it then.
All throughout the pages of our bibles, you can find story after story, accounts of men and woman who were simply living their lives ~ some good, some bad ~ and going about their business when God interrupts them; he makes them keenly aware of an insight or truth about himself that alters their consciousness, their perspective and patterns and they go away from the experience changed. Sometimes he may knock you off your horse and strike you blind, like Saul. He may choose to start a fire in nearby shrubbery, and then talk to you from it as you walk your sheep, like Moses.
Or he may use something as subtle as a scent; something that is within his will to manipulate to his glory in order that you and I are made keenly aware of HIM.
All tools of his grace to humanity; he may even use us as that scent to both change us and direct others to him so that he gets the glory.
How do you smell? Are you catching people’s attention or turning them off? Are people being drawn to God through you or being pushed away? Are you close to him, letting him show you where you really are and letting him fill you more and more ~ are you getting in his way? Are we being real in our depiction of Christ and what it looks like to be his follower?
Let him Speak into you, don’t analyse it. (this coming from a “bible studier”) Too often we complicate things; Jesus spoke in parable to common folk with surface meaning or generally understood, subtle sub-text, we don’t have to dig too deep to get it.
I hope we see how God works through us in order to bring others to him so that he might have the glory. That smells good.