“You smell good.”

 … is what the little girl told me.

My time with my lunch buddy was over.   As I walked out of the school building I saw, among some students eating their lunches outside, a 4th grade girl who attends the church I pastor. So I stopped by to say “Hi!”   I sat across the table from her. We talked school, Halloween costumes, her hair (“She did it herself!” chimed in a girl sitting next to her). I wasn’t surprised.  Her grandmother is a hairstylist.  

 While we were talking I felt something on my left arm.  I looked over and saw that the girl I was sitting by had her face pressed against my shirt.

She looked up and said, “You smell good,” and put her nose back on my arm.  

“Well, thank you,” I said.  “You’re a very nice person.  I’m glad I smell good.”

I love so many things about that.

A kid’s honesty.

A kid’s unreserved expression.

And, I love that I smelled good – not sure if it was my cologne or laundry detergent. But, with her honesty, I don’t think she would have hesitated to tell me if I didn’t smell good.  

I talked Sunday about:

– “sin as the violation of shalom” (Cornelius Plantiga, Jr, Phd; Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be).”

• sin as the failure to do “good” – “kalon” – “good” – It means “that which is beautiful.”   

“If anyone, then, knows the good (kalon) they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them” (James 4:17).

Sin is failing:

to do the beautiful thing,

to say the beautiful thing,

to think the beautiful thing.  

“Good” is how God described creation (Genesis 1:31).  It was  “shalom” – it was how God wanted things to be. 

“Good” is what God has shown us to do (Micah 6:8).  The “good” that God has shown us is to act with justice (fairness), to love mercy and to walk in humility with our God.

“Good” is how God wants us to smell. 

Beautiful.

Beautiful not in clothes or cologne, but in 

Character and 

Conduct and 

Conversation.

Yes, I’m glad that something about me smelled good.  I left the school hoping that the most important things did too.