You refuse to obey me. You offer sacrifices to other gods. So I will punish all of you. People of Ephraim, I know all about you. What you're doing is not hidden from me. (Hosea 5:2-3 NIRV)
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So I was sitting on the bus and I just had to laugh. There are times when I am grateful for having allergies. There are times when I am grateful for my underdeveloped sense of smell. This was definitely one of those times. I was sitting near the back, the window was open and I was desperate for that fresh air blowing over me. Yes, my nose was a bit stuffy, but it was letting enough through that I was wishing it were fully blocked. Beyond that, the air on the bus was so pungent that you could even taste it. With only one exception, everyone else on the bus either had their hand covering their nose, or they were lucky enough, like me, to be able to stick their face out a window. The one exception was the olfactory vandal. The poor guy got on the bus a few times back and I think he's got something dying and quite decayed in his back pocket. The poor guy is acting like everything is fine with the world. I'm not sure if he is putting on a brave face, or if he really doesn't know. I can't really blame him, though. There have been times when I was that man. My senior year in college I worked as campus security. I had the one to seven shift. That's 1AM to 7AM. More than once I wouldn't bother going to sleep. More than once I wouldn't bother even going to sleep. After one shift where I hadn't slept in a couple days, I knew it was going to take something more than normal to keep me awake through my classes. So in the hour I had after work before my first class started I was chugging that coffee while I made myself a couple three egg omelets. I must have easily put down ten cups of coffee. That's 10 cups 6 eggs 1 hour. Breakfast was so good that I felt I just had to share. So all the way through my first class, I was lighting off little airborne gifts. OK, so they weren't quite that little. Now I wasn't completely ignorant to the fact that what was coming out of me was not the most aromatic of perfumes. But I had no idea how bad I really was until someone on the far end of this fairly large room got up and opened every single window on this fairly cold day. What is worse, the professor looked over as the student was heading back to their seat and said, "thank you".
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Have you ever found yourself in one of these situations? Have you ever been completely ignorant of the stink you are forcing others to endure? Have you ever known you might smell a bit, but have had no idea just how bad things really were? Are you living with a "secret" sin? If so, then you fall into one of these two categories. One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is that the sin we are struggling with is only effecting us. It is only between us and God. That is simply not true. Every time we sin, whether it is done openly or in secret, we are effecting the way we deal with every other person we come into contact with. They may not know just what it is that they are "smelling", but something about you stinks. In very real terms I can say that my doing devotions has a direct effect on my wallet. Now, obviously this is not why I am doing it, but on the mornings when I get up and spend the time I should be with God, it shows in very subtle ways as I deal with the people I serve. There is something about me that simply draws them. It is a spiritual sweet aroma that they, and almost always I, am not even aware of. Is not the same true in reverse? When I am not living right, spiritually I stink. We're not aware of it, but God is. He knows the impact we could have had but don't. He sees how the sin we keep in the closet damages our witness in those ways they we couldn't possibly imagine and we therefore either downplay or refuse to acknowledge it. We're saying, "It's not hurting anybody." But He's saying, "BJ, I know all about you. What you're not doing and the cost of your actions is not hidden from me." He's saying, "Clean yourself up, you stink."
