Fragrance of Life

I met Mike at a funeral of all places. We were in the hall after the burial, enjoying tea and refreshments when I saw him sitting quietly with his teacup in his hand, his head bent forward slightly.

I took a seat next to him. “Hi, my name is Ken. Are you a member of the family?”

“No”, he replied. “Joe and I were best friends for more than thirty years. Ah, you know, I feel sad today, not because Joe is gone and that we will not see him again, but because we have missed so much in life. He is in heaven but we have missed a great deal of true life.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked. Mike told me their story. They met at school many years ago and instantly became close friends. They shared so much together, but Mike said that the time he remembers best, was after they met Jesus.

With a smile on his face Mike continued and told me how they went all out serving Jesus, from school to university and even after they had started their own separate careers.

“It was a feast. You know, when I think about those years I can almost smell it. We smelled the fragrance of success and prosperity but above all, the fragrance of Jesus at our side.”

Mike went silent for a while before he continued. “Then we got so busy with our careers, we gradually forgot to live. I guess you could say we had backslidden spiritually to a place where Jesus was just a framed picture on a wall, a sweet memory. And the fragrance was gone from our lives without us noticing anything.”

“However, unfortunately, or should I say fortunately, Joe fell ill, seriously, incurably ill. This illness took Joe back on his footprints to the place where he had left Jesus. I don’t know how far he had to go back but he got there, and when he did, he grabbed the hand of Jesus and, do you know what? I am sure he is still holding on to that hand in heaven as we speak.”

“Today I smell life again. The preacher delivered a message in church that I know was sent from Jesus and Joe. He read something about people like us who went missing for Jesus in the buzz of life – ‘I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for my anger has turned away from him (Hosea 14:4).’”

With a tear trickling down his cheek, he continued, “What hit me the most was one of the verses that read, ‘His branches shall spread, his beauty shall be like an olive tree and his fragrance like the Lebanon.’

And this is exactly what is happening now. I smell the fragrance of life again, the life of Jesus!”

Mike put down his empty cup, greeted me as if we were old friends and left smiling. It suddenly felt very quiet and lonely but I picked up a wonderful fragrance in the air.

Jesus is Alive! All I have to do, is to backtrack to the place where I let go of His hand and grab on to it like Joe did, knowing that He has never left me.