BROOKE URISH | GUEST

As I walked past our guest room–turned–laundry-folding area, my stomach sank. How could there be so much laundry to fold? I pushed it out of my mind to focus on a more pressing need—my young kids need lunch. Once in the kitchen, the sinking feeling returned at the sight of a sink full of dishes. Didn’t I just do these this morning? My six-year-old asks me to play baseball out back for what feels like the hundredth time, and I snap—“I can’t play right now, stop asking me!” Immediately, I regret my tone and recognize that he deserves an apology.

As a mom to three young children, this is a snapshot of a typical day. I often feel insufficient for the task at hand. I can’t seem to stay on top of laundry, dishes, school tasks, cooking, etc., so I label myself a “bad homemaker.” However, it’s times like this when the Lord brings to mind the encouraging words a wise woman once shared with me: “Brooke, God is pleased with what you do in your home, even when you mess it up.”

The Aroma of Christ

Is this really true? When I turned to Scripture looking for a roadmap or a checklist, God gave me something else entirely. He gave me an identity. In 2 Corinthians 2:15 Paul says: “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” I am the aroma of Christ to God? What does that mean?

To understand this, we must look back at the Old Testament sacrificial system. Throughout the Old Testament, we see the phrase “pleasing aroma to God” connected to sacrifice. The first instance of this was after the flood, when Noah offered a sacrifice to God. Genesis 8:20–21 says, “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man…’” Paul connects this aroma language to Christ in Ephesians 5:2: “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Maybe, if you’re like me, it’s easy to understand how Christ’s life and death were a fragrant offering to God. God was pleased with His Son’s perfect life and sacrificial death. What is harder to grasp is that because I am united to Christ by grace through faith, God sees me clothed in Christ’s righteousness and is pleased with me. He not only accepts me because of Christ, but joyfully receives me as His daughter! Furthermore, God uses broken vessels like me to spread the knowledge of Christ to others.

As the aroma of Christ, our lives impact those whom we come in contact with. To some, the aroma is the smell of death, but to others it is the fragrance of life. Some view us as foolish for following Christ, but those who are being saved are drawn to Christ by us. Maybe it is our children watching us walk faithfully through each day: praying with them, encouraging them, reading the Bible to them, or even asking them for forgiveness when we sin against them. Or maybe our spouse, neighbors, or coworkers notice the pleasing aroma of Christ.

A Sweet Aroma in the Ordinary

Holding on to this truth changes the way we walk through ordinary days. Through simple, daily faithfulness, we can rest in the knowledge that God is pleased with us. We do not earn His approval through more disciplined Bible reading, more consistent prayer, or more perfectly managed homes. Christ’s perfect obedience has already been credited to us by faith. Nothing we do can add to or take away from His finished work.

Because of this, we are free to serve others joyfully as unto the Lord and not man, knowing our reward is in heaven. And while repentance still marks the Christian life, our grief over sin is never without hope. Christ has already lived the perfect life we could not live and offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice on our behalf. What amazing grace.

How does this comfort us? I’m never going to be a perfect homemaker no matter how hard I try to be a Proverbs 31 wife. Yet God sees me in each moment, and because I belong to Christ, He is pleased with me. The great Creator of the universe smells the sweet aroma of Christ’s perfect sacrifice when I’m folding the piles of laundry, making meals for my family, or washing the dishes. My standing before God is not impacted by what kind of day I had, or how many loads of laundry still need to be folded. Instead, my hope, rest, and assurance lie at the feet of the One who knows all things, holds all things in His hands, and delights in me because I belong to Christ.

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash