Surprised!

This morning I opened up my box of Swiffer Duster refills.  My bedroom ceiling fan was beyond dusty.  I've been putting off cleaning it.  Tonight I want to sleep on clean sheets, so I decided to dust the fan, shake the sheets outside and toss them into the wash.

When I opened my new box of Dusters bright light and a heavenly chorus began playing right there in my laundry room.  It was the smell of heaven I'm sure!  The dusters smells amazing.  The perfect clean smell.  Ahhh.  What a pleasant surprise!  I had no idea they smelled.  Citrus and Light.  What a great description of the smell.  The dusting was needing to happen, it was going to happen today, and the beautiful smell was a wonderful surprise for me.  It caught me completely by surprise and off guard.

Something opened to complete a mundane, dirty job revealed beauty and joy.

I want this smell everywhere in my home.   Happiness, sheer happiness.

This leads me to something else I can't wait to share with you.  It's a thought from the book Simple Obsession I've been reading and the concept is from a Pastor named Hal Perkins. In talking about the fruit of the Spirit and if it is evident in your life.  Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Longsuffering, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control.

"Pastor Hal Perkins described it this way.  He likened people to vessels that hold liquid.  Every time someone "bumps" us, something spills out. Will it be ugliness or will it be the sweet, refreshing Spirit of Christ?  The "bumping" is the test of what is truly inside.

We must examine the fruit being produced by our internal attitudes, and if we find that we see and smell little or nothing of the character of Jesus, our bridegroom, then we must return to intimate fellowship with him.  There, he can begin to transform our nature and begin to produce the fruit of righteousness and holiness-that of the fruit of the Spirit."

If you are like me, you were bumped this week and maybe something ugly spilled out.  If you are like me, you want beauty to spill out.  Beauty and light.

Christ's greatest desire is to fill us of more of Him.

To smell like the fragrance of him, even in ugly, messy situations.  That right there is evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in you.  When you are opened up expecting the ordinary only to be surprised by beauty and the smell of sweetness.

Read something in the Word today.  Anything.  Proverbs 7.  Psalm 23.  2 Corinthians 6-8.  Genesis 50:2.

You can read for 2 minutes or 20.

Open your Bible and receive a Word from your Father.

This morning after I'd dusted my room, I brought the vacuum in to sweep the carpets.  I had laid my Bible on the floor and there was something blue peeping out from a blanket right beside it. It was one of the boys swords.

How symbolic.  Two swords on the ground, right there for the taking to fight battles with.