Foundation

Odd question: Who loves being in the mountains? Some of you know I LOVE to run; but more than exploring the great city of Phoenix by foot, running in the mountains on a fall morning takes the place of almost anything.The funny thing is...when I run in the mountains I am reminded that the run is not about what I can do or how far I can go but about standing on unshakable ground. I stand at the bottom of the food chain of the world. No matter what I'm dealing with in life, something made that mountain stand still, and the same thing that gives stillness to that mountain can surely give it to me. If I hunger and cry out for that solitude, I expect that it will come.

When you look at a mountain you probably don't think of it as something weak or unstable. They are composed of millions of tons of rock and sediment and mineral. There is something huge and unexplainable about spending all your energy to make it up a seven mile mountain...especially when you've been to that same place a hundred time. It's that you stand in the middle of something which holds so much energy and strength and beauty. You stand on holy ground. You stand on something created with the swipe of a fingertip. And to stand in the middle of it, to scale it, to view it, to breathe it in makes you feel that the culmination of morphing phases of life you experience had to have been planned out by something way bigger than yourself. To stand in the middle of a mountain is to understand that it didn't just show up, and must have taken an incredible force to create...one that knew how and what the end result would be: a mountain.

Awake

For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. -Paul, 2 Co. 2:15

In case you were unaware, if you're a human, chances are that you possess all five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell; and only one of those has full capability of bringing you back to the full sensory experience: smell. I work in the coffee industry...meaning my job is to create sensory experiences for my customers. By 5:30 am there is not a line out the door so that people can simply get their dose of caffeine to wake up; there is a line out the door because the customer knows they are guaranteed whatever that thing is that allows a person to have connection with something good from an earlier day. Think about it: Why do you wake up and crave your cup of coffee or cinnamon pancakes? Because at an earlier time that same scent was linked to something positive and powerful. You crave your bowl of raspberry granola because the aroma lingers in the back of your mind...you start envisioning how good it tasted before, the experience that surrounded that bowl of granola: perhaps a good conversation, the feel of your dogs soft fur between your fingers, the energy that yields from a full night's sleep. The aroma of the experience lingers in your mind.

Catch this: An aroma is not a scent. The two are distinctly different. One (a scent) fades...it is a transient slight of air that disappears when other senses kick in. The second (an aroma) exceeds both time and place. It is something which is carried around, much like the smell of cassis perfume on a woman's blouse, still present hours after she puts it on. Similarly, God calls us out as the aroma of Christ; since Christ no longer walks around on earth, we cannot smell Him. This has to be why we study how to follow Him and be more like Him through scripture. Our mission is to exude the scent of Christ and to be Him to others. We are to carry with us at all times, the eau de parfum o christ on our shirts.  We are the ones being held accountable for those who are being saved and those who are perishing based on if we carry the aroma of Christ. If those who walk behind us and follow in our footsteps smell musty soil or rancid milk exuded from our bodies, there is no way they can smell the beauty of Christ. So lets wake up, take a deep breath, and not forget what Christ smells like.