Do You Smell Like Smoke?
When I was a child, one of my grandmothers smoked cigarettes. She tired to hide that she smoked from her grandchildren….she would NEVER smoke around us and would do everything she could to hide the fact that she smoked from us. But one day, she was trying to hug my little brother Dan and he exclaimed, “EW! Your breath smells like smoke!” There was no hiding the smell! My grandmother would have told you that was the moment she quit smoking for good.
In Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were not only delivered from the fiery furnace….but Scripture tells us “nor was a hair of their heads singed….and there was no smell of fire on them” (Daniel 3: 26-27). I love that! Not only were they delivered from the fire, but they didn’t even smell like the fire!
Many times, God delivers us from the fiery furnaces of life…but we still smell like smoke and we end up repelling those closest to us. Now don’t get me wrong here…even when wounds heal we carry scars with us the rest of our lives. These scars from past disappointments and fiery furnaces become part of our testimony. They become beautiful life-giving scars. Even Jesus still has the nail printed hands (John 20:27, Revelation 7:9-10, 17; 22:1, 3). But there is a big difference between a past wound becoming a beautiful scar and a past wound infecting our whole being…we smell like the fiery furnace…in other words…we smell like bitterness, we smell like betrayal, we smell like conflict.
It all sounds so good until real life hits and until the real life burns scorch our hearts. It sounds great until you are actually IN the fire…or until you are trying to RECOVER from the fires of life that burn us. Try telling a person who has been badly burned by betrayal that they “smell like betrayal”…they may smell like betrayal because they are still in the throes of betrayal! They may smell like betrayal to you because you are called to have a front row seat to their pain. That being said…
Regardless of your situation…do you smell like smoke? What is the alternative? To hide the smell? To fake it? The alternative….as is always the case…is to run to Jesus. In Corinthians 2: 15-17, Paul says that Christians have the “aroma of Christ”. Wow!
Maybe you are still in the fire right now…here is your comfort….the Scriptures tell us there was a “fourth man in the fire”….and that man was Jesus Christ. He was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and he is with you in your fire if you are trusting in him. Watch for more.
