a Prayer To Live As A Lovely Fragrance Before God and Others

Many of you know that I lived overseas in Taiwan for a number of years teaching school and involved in missionary work there.  One of the first things that I was required to do in order to establish my residency there and do all sorts of things like get a bank account and sign up for utilities etc. was to get a Chinese name.  Fortunately I was living in a city serving the children of missionaries who worked in a local Christian hospital and so one of the Chinese chaplains in that hospital took on the task of finding a good name for me.  What a person typically did was to try to find a name in Chinese that sounded a bit like the English name but which also had an honourable meaning attached to it. 

I was very fortunate to have been given the name that means, “Lovely Fragrance” that comes from these verses in 2 Corinthians.

Thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?  2 Corinthians 2:14-16

I have to tell you that I’ve reflected on those verses and that name many many times over the years asking the Lord to help me live in such a way that wherever I go I leave a pleasing aroma of the Lord Jesus.  Far too often I fall short.  It can be a tone of voice, a facial expression, an impatient spirit, some kind of judgmental thought or word, a distancing because of irritation --- oh my, the list goes on way too long for me to confess it all here. 

The context of that lovely fragrance has challenges on both sides.  The first challenge is that we are “captives in Christ’s victory parade.”  We are no longer living on our own but are living in the service of Jesus Christ.  It is the victory of Jesus as we make Him Lord over our lives and show the devil and everyone else that Jesus is in charge of everything about us that can lead to there being a lovely fragrance in our living. 

Our world things that the greatest beauty comes from being in charge of our own lives but that is just not true.

The other side of this lovely fragrance picture is the fact that we will not always be popular and wanted by others when we lives as one who serves the Lord Jesus.  Those who are seeking God and coming to faith will be attracted by the fragrance of our lives.  Those who are living in rebellion and drawing away from God will be repelled.  Our lives and actions will be distasteful to them.

And so the second challenge for us today – are we willing to seek God’s way and put that into practice in our secular and God-forsaking societies with gentleness and respect, even when others unfairly disparage what we are doing and why we are doing it? 

This certainly is the message of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus we’ve been contemplating in these post Easter days, isn’t it?  Those were the challenges all through His life and ministry as He put His Father’s plan in place day by day and situation by situation right up to His being nailed to the cross and praying for forgiveness of those who put Him there. 

I bumped into this prayer from Mother Teresa a few days ago.  Let’s begin there today:

Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance everywhere I go.  Flood my soul with your spirit and life.  Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that my life may only be a radiance of yours.  Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.  Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus.

Yes Lord, that is our prayer.  We want to be surrendered to Your will in every part of this day – not just in the words and actions we take but in our desires, our motivations, our thoughts, our reactions, our hopes and dreams.  Deep in our soul we need Your presence to fill us and enlighten us to what is truly going on in us so we can more and more be made fresh and new. 

Help us to be compliant followers in Your triumphal procession today.  Use us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of You everywhere we go.  We want to be those who awaken in everyone we meet a conscious awareness of God.  We can’t make them choose the way we want, but we can, by how we live, provide one more opportunity for them to encounter You, God, and respond to You.  That’s our desire for this day.  Amen