fragrance
I recently received a bottle of fragrance entitled “Happy.” Well, funny enough, it wasn’t even the REAL“Happy”… it was, irony of ironies, FAKE “Happy”. The accurate name was “An Impression of Happy”.
If we are looking for the world to bring us “Happy”, sadly the best we will get is not much better than what I got… “An Impression of Happy.”
But the Holy Scriptures talk about another way to find “Happy” and it is not at all the way the world would tell you.
Jesus says, if anyone wants to find true and lasting “Happy”-- no, even better-- the absolute fountainhead, the source of “Happy” [because happy is only a temporary, fleeting emotion] Jesus says, we find it in Him.
How can He be so bold to say this?
Because He invented it.
C.S.Lewis writes of such things in The Weight of Glory.
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
So how do we get to the source of this infinite joy?
We say YES to the Master. We let Him do His work in us… and we do our part. We cooperate.
Christ says:
“For whoever wishes to save his life, will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, will find it.” Matthew 16:25
At first, that does not sound like the road to “Happy.” But if you have lived only a hand-full of years, you know the sure way to happiness is not living for yourself, but for others.
The Old Testament prophesied that the Savior would have the “Oil of gladness above all others.” Psalm 45:7.
Jesus was the picture of gladness, happiness and joy. No, actually, He WAS those very things. He embodied all He created. All created things are just a mere reflection of their source -- the Creator. That is why, when we delight in anything created, it is just a glimpse of the One Who Created it, a glimpse of eternity, and that makes us long for Him.
Jesus wants to give us HIMSELF and have us effuse His Joyful, Happy and Loving aroma…
“But thanks be to God, who always brings triumph to us in Christ Jesus, and who manifests the fragrance of his knowledge through us in every place. For we are the sweet aroma of Christ for God, both with those who are being saved and with those who are perishing.” 2 Corinthians 2:14-15
How do we become the “sweet aroma” of Christ?
This scripture states that Jesus Himself manifests the fragrance of His knowledge through us.
What does that mean?
As we actually get to know Him… know Who He is, how much He loves us, and how He expects us to love and treat one another… we will become a “sweet aroma” of Him. As we spend time in conversation with Him in prayer, studying and replicating what we see Him doing in His word, taking Him in through the Sacraments, sitting with Him in Adoration, we will be transformed by His Spirit living in us and actually start to smell like Him...or at least emit His “Sweetness.”
My prayer is this… as we marinate, bask, soak in His Goodness and all that is Him, we will begin to lose the “earthy overtones” and truly become “Heaven Scent.”
Dear Lord,
Here I come with my stinky self in need of the Joyful Sweetness that is You. I don’t want to settle for external temporary earthly happiness when I can have internal, full and eternally lasting Joy. I want You to ooze from my every pore, not me. I want Your aroma to be thick in the atmosphere I create. I want people to know that they have been in the presence of Something Heavenly because I have been in the Presence of You and I am wafting all of the joys of heaven in my wake. Please give me the desire to long to be with You, to never get enough of You. Then this world will truly be a happier place, because I will bring the Source of all “Happy” with me.
I ask this in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
