Heightening Your Sense of Smell

You may not believe this, but at one time in my life, I was a card carrying member of the Porkettes.  No, it wasn’t a social club for weight-challenged gals, it was the female counterpart of the Illinois Pork Producers Association. Yes, I have to admit that I, unwillingly, used to hang around with pigs.  Some of the other Porkettes would actually wax poetic about raising these creatures, but not me.  Please remember that I was raised on Staten Island, NY, and the closest I had ever gotten to a pig was a pork chop! Don’t get me wrong, I love animals, but pigs are in a category all by themselves. Here’s my personal impression of them: They are smart enough to be extremely ornery; possess quickness to out run you; are pig-headedly stubborn, and most of all they STINK!!  I don’t mean wet dog smelly, we’re talking one of the top 10 worst odors in the world, smelly. Some people say they got used to the stench, or  jokingly said they smelled like money.  I did not fall into either group. The day the last one of those beasts left our farm, ranks as one of the happiest events of my life.

So why am I picking on porkers today; because they stink!  The Bible doesn’t hold them in high regard either.  Jews weren’t, and still aren’t, allowed to eat them; Jesus got rid of a slew of demons by allowing them to enter a herd of porkers; and the Prodigal Son. Let’s concentrate on the Prodigal Son’s relationship with pigs today.  We’re all familiar with his sinful, money-squandering ways, and his eventual fall into the stinking pig pen.  In this place, the lowest of the low, for a Jew, scripture tells us this; “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.’” Luke 15:17-19.
It says he came to his senses, and I think his sense of smell was instrumental in bringing about his change of heart. His whole attitude and lifestyle was malodorous, to those around him, but he couldn’t smell it on himself, until he hit the bottom in that pen.  It’s easy for us “clean, sweet-smelling, sinless” folks to be repelled by a whiff of pig poop, but when you’re knee deep in it, it’s a different story.  Thank God that this young man’s heavenly father fine tuned his olfactory glands, allowing to smell what he had become, and brought him home to a joyous earthly father.

 So it was with everyone of us, we stunk because of original sin. The problem was, we weren‘t aware of it until our sense of smell kicked in, and we chose to allow God to clean up our individual pens. Do you know someone, or are you that someone, still kicking around in the manure?  Ask God to fine tune your sense of smell, if anything stinks, he‘ll give you the ability you to smell it!!