One of my biggest pet peeves is a smelly dog in the house. My sense of smell is very keen so anything unpleasant is quickly detected. My dog, which is a house dog, occasionally comes in smelling completely foul and I haven’t a clue what he has gotten into. But rest assured, my highest priority at that moment is to get the smell off of him. I keep some handy puppy wipes around for just such an event.

As I listened to his soft snoring this morning after having been through a cleaning just last evening, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, sometimes God looks at us the way I looked at my dog last evening.

Do you think that sometimes we come to church all smelly and dirty? Not the kind of dirt and smell that those around us can detect. I imagine it’s a stink and filth that only the Lord and His angels can detect. I can visualize His nose crinkling in disgust and His eyes watering at the foul stench.

You know how it goes — we get busy. We push aside devotions and then prayer takes a back seat to jobs and chores and family responsibilities. And then we watch something on television that adds a layer of dust. Or maybe it goes so far as to add a bit of mire to our filthy rags. And we don’t even notice, because we have wandered so far from the safety of the sheepfold that we’re becoming desensitized to our own stench.

Now, maybe yours isn’t that bad. Just a little body odor from not washing in the Word enough. Or maybe, just maybe, yours is so bad that God is calling for the fire hose and when those church doors open, God is handing the angels buckets of soapy water. I wonder.

In a society so intent on washing and perfuming and deodorizing ourselves and our clothes, do you think it might be time that we shifted our focus to washing, perfuming and deodorizing our spirits? It’s worth praying about…….

May your week be filled with fresh air 😉