Brown has its steaming coffee. Teal has its briny seashore breeze. Green, its mowed grass. But purple is the color of perfumed flowers, which seem to be everywhere in the exuberance of spring.

Twenty years ago, we planted a lilac bush in our back yard. It is now tall and full, laden with blossomed cones, which fill the air around it with their bouquet. To quote poet Amy Lowell, a lilac flaunts the fragrance of its blossoms.

Alison has sent me out to cut some of the branches to bring that fragrance into the house.

Smell is a powerful sense. A month ago, I was in a southern city, walking back to the hotel at night on a street lined with impressive homes and gardens. In the dark, I passed lilacs that overhung a fence and its heavy perfume struck me and stopped me like a force before I even saw them. I stood in the dark, enveloped, slowly breathing it in its richness.

That God created scent is a marvelous thing. That he uses us to diffuse a pleasant aroma is a marvelous metaphor. “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.” (2 Cor. 2:14) Christ is the aroma. But the world gets this heavenly scent through us.

I’ve been thinking about my travels – coming up on sixteen destinations in eleven weeks. I’m working hard on the everywhere part of that verse. What blesses and challenges me is the thought that as he leads me, God is giving people an experience of Jesus. My job is simply to follow. He does the wafting.

I pray that for some, the scent is as powerful and pleasing as those lilacs in the dark.

Lead on, O King eternal. Spread the fragrance of your Son through us, as you promised. Make us an attracting aroma to those you are calling to yourself. Use us, we pray, that others may know the sweetness of knowing Jesus.