Nigeria is filled with many sights and sounds…..it is also filled with many smells. We are living on the second story of a home belonging to Ma Grace. She is in her 70s although you would never know it. God has entrusted her to the Godly raising of many children: her own, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and an assortment of others. There are currently 3 individuals living with her downstairs.
Last week, a grandson, John, from Houston came for a two week stay. That would mean he would live upstairs where we are living. (We are grateful to each have our own rooms.) The receiving of guests meant that all other ‘unwanted’ residents had to go. Living in a third world country under the conditions that we do, somewhere in your mind you realize that you are living among creatures that you choose to ignore. You know that they are there. You choose however to believe that they are not. Ma Grace chose another remedy. She chose to set out poison. This poison, like most, is attractive. It is meant to draw the vermin out and for them to take in what is being offered. It is really their hunger or desire for something attractive to satisfy them that entices their eating their own demise. The idea of poisoning other residents of our home seemed understandable…until the poison took effect. Ma lives downstairs……away from the vermin that reside in our area and ceiling. It didn’t take long until the very strong scent of death was in the air. Any local that would enter our area would promptly say…..’You have rat.’ Yes, it’s true, I smell a rat.
Now, living with rats and choosing to ignore them was much easier for me than living with rats and being forced to smell them. Each day the scent would grow stronger. People who came to see us would climb up on chairs, turn over furniture and peek behind curtains to find our rats. These rats however were in the ceiling and the ceiling was sealed and unable to be opened for inspection. And so, day after day we would live in the stench of our once-ignored and unseen guests…that stench being a now very-present reminder of their presence.
It seems that God chooses so many times to use my daily life and struggles as the lessons I need to learn. One day when I felt I could take the smell no longer, He began to speak. He lay upon my heart in different scriptures of how our behavior, our hypocritical actions, our hardness of heart was a stench to Him. How those things we have hidden away in the recesses of our lives, much like the ceilings in our residence, although they may not be openly seen, still exist. The rats have been there all along but now something has drawn their presence out to our attention. Our negative thinking, our sins in secret have always been there, but now they are being brought out into the open.
Just as Ma was preparing to receive a special guest, God too, is preparing His church for the special coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Poison, as it were, has been placed out to draw out what needs to be struck dead within us…and for now, we stink. Others may search for the unpleasant smells in the obvious places but only we know what is hidden in our ‘ceilings’, in those secret places. The first rats to die crawled out into the open. Their ugly swollen carcasses were easy to see and remove. In fact we found them before we smelled them. The ones that smell the most are those who crawled deeper into their hiding places hoping to survive. But no one survives this poison…no matter where one hides.
I’ve shared with many how difficult this trip has been…in every way imaginable. But God has been drawing out the rats in my soul. They have been there all along but now they are exposed for all to see. ..Or should I say ‘smell.’ When Jesus went to His good friends’ home after the death of Lazarus, the sisters stood at the grave and said that ‘by now, the smell is bad……he ‘stinketh’ as it were….. Jesus knew that. I believe the smell was for all to behold because we need to know our true condition – without Him, we stink. And it’s because of that dying, that stinking, that the true glory of the life of Christ in us can be appreciated. It is only with His life flowing in us that we can live in fullness and without our stench.
His fragrance is what I want. I want others to inhale His presence because I carry it with me and within me. Without Him I am nothing. Without Him I can do no good thing. Without Him, I stink.
Last week, a grandson, John, from Houston came for a two week stay. That would mean he would live upstairs where we are living. (We are grateful to each have our own rooms.) The receiving of guests meant that all other ‘unwanted’ residents had to go. Living in a third world country under the conditions that we do, somewhere in your mind you realize that you are living among creatures that you choose to ignore. You know that they are there. You choose however to believe that they are not. Ma Grace chose another remedy. She chose to set out poison. This poison, like most, is attractive. It is meant to draw the vermin out and for them to take in what is being offered. It is really their hunger or desire for something attractive to satisfy them that entices their eating their own demise. The idea of poisoning other residents of our home seemed understandable…until the poison took effect. Ma lives downstairs……away from the vermin that reside in our area and ceiling. It didn’t take long until the very strong scent of death was in the air. Any local that would enter our area would promptly say…..’You have rat.’ Yes, it’s true, I smell a rat.
Now, living with rats and choosing to ignore them was much easier for me than living with rats and being forced to smell them. Each day the scent would grow stronger. People who came to see us would climb up on chairs, turn over furniture and peek behind curtains to find our rats. These rats however were in the ceiling and the ceiling was sealed and unable to be opened for inspection. And so, day after day we would live in the stench of our once-ignored and unseen guests…that stench being a now very-present reminder of their presence.
It seems that God chooses so many times to use my daily life and struggles as the lessons I need to learn. One day when I felt I could take the smell no longer, He began to speak. He lay upon my heart in different scriptures of how our behavior, our hypocritical actions, our hardness of heart was a stench to Him. How those things we have hidden away in the recesses of our lives, much like the ceilings in our residence, although they may not be openly seen, still exist. The rats have been there all along but now something has drawn their presence out to our attention. Our negative thinking, our sins in secret have always been there, but now they are being brought out into the open.
Just as Ma was preparing to receive a special guest, God too, is preparing His church for the special coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Poison, as it were, has been placed out to draw out what needs to be struck dead within us…and for now, we stink. Others may search for the unpleasant smells in the obvious places but only we know what is hidden in our ‘ceilings’, in those secret places. The first rats to die crawled out into the open. Their ugly swollen carcasses were easy to see and remove. In fact we found them before we smelled them. The ones that smell the most are those who crawled deeper into their hiding places hoping to survive. But no one survives this poison…no matter where one hides.
I’ve shared with many how difficult this trip has been…in every way imaginable. But God has been drawing out the rats in my soul. They have been there all along but now they are exposed for all to see. ..Or should I say ‘smell.’ When Jesus went to His good friends’ home after the death of Lazarus, the sisters stood at the grave and said that ‘by now, the smell is bad……he ‘stinketh’ as it were….. Jesus knew that. I believe the smell was for all to behold because we need to know our true condition – without Him, we stink. And it’s because of that dying, that stinking, that the true glory of the life of Christ in us can be appreciated. It is only with His life flowing in us that we can live in fullness and without our stench.
His fragrance is what I want. I want others to inhale His presence because I carry it with me and within me. Without Him I am nothing. Without Him I can do no good thing. Without Him, I stink.