I am sometimes asked where I get ideas and inspiration for my blog posts. The answer varies, from my Bible study time to prompts I get, to very random incidents in my daily life. This one is, admittedly, a bit of an unusual one. I was taking my son to school one morning this past week, and a garbage truck passed by. While I am very (and I mean very) grateful for the service bin collectors provide, it will be of no surprise to you if I tell you that the smell from the rubbish on the truck was revolting, truly nauseating. Two things came to my mind almost immediately. One was that I wanted to distance myself from the truck as swiftly as possible, as I couldn’t bear to remain in the atmosphere of that stench. The second was a sense of God saying, that is how I feel about sin.

The more I reflected on it, while also doing some study of what the Bible had to say about this, the more I began to see that there was a particular sin that was particularly revolting to God, the sin of pride. Pride is sometimes referred to as the original sin. It was the sin Lucifer committed when he wanted to exalt himself above God (Ezekiel 28:11-19). Augustine refers to it as “the craving for undue exaltation”. It is a desire to be a law unto oneself, to be one’s god, placing oneself above God and above others.

We see this stench of the sin of pride so clearly in Isaiah 65. The Lord says, “I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help. I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’ to a nation that did not call on my name. All day long I opened my arms to a rebellious people. But they follow their own evil paths and their own crooked schemes… Yet they say to each other, ‘Don’t come too close or you will defile me! I am holier than you!’ These people are a stench in my nostrils, an acrid smell that never goes away.” (Psalm 65:1-2,5; NLT). The MSG (v.5) says “These people gag me. I can’t stand their stench.”

The Bible uses very strong words to describe just how offensive pride is to God. Proverbs 16:5 (BSB) says “Everyone who is proud in heart is detestable to the LORD; be assured that he will not go unpunished.” Other translations say the proud in heart are an abomination to God. Wow.

It may be tricky for us to answer a question on whether or not we are proud, but as Matthew 7:16 reminds us, “by their fruit you shall know them“. Pride has its fruit, its symptoms, and one symptom of pride that we don’t often realise is prayerlessness. Why? Because it is essentially saying ‘go away God, I don’t need you.’ Psalm 10:4 (BSB) says, “In his pride the wicked man does not seek Him; in all his schemes there is no God.”

Jackie Hill Perry notes that “Prayerlessness is almost always a humility issue—the natural consequence of a heart that tends to believe it is good without God. Yes, you may be busy, but it is possible that you are also proud. Pride is the true enemy of your prayer life. Pride deludes us into thinking we’re self-sufficient. That our jobs supply our needs. Our relationships provide comfort. Our intellect and ambition make us successful. But in fact, everything you are and everything you have is because God rains on the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:45).”

And that thought process and lifestyle that fails to realise the need for God or to acknowledge God’s work in our lives, is a stench, much like a passing garbage truck, to God. No wonder James 4:6 tells us that God resists, opposes, sets Himself against the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Can you imagine being in a position or a battle where God is your opposition? Scary!

This leads to the question, what sort of fragrance is pleasing to God? If you hadn’t already guessed that it would be the opposite, Psalm 141:2(BSB) gives us a clue. “May my prayer be set before You like incense; my uplifted hands, like the evening offering.”

Revelation 5:8 (BSB) gives us another hint, “When He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”

Isn’t that so precious and beautiful? The idea that our prayers are like sweet smelling incense before God? That the garbled collection of words I utter to my Heavenly Father mean so much to Him? They aren’t just chucked into some flimsy plastic container, they are in golden bowls! Thinking of that makes me want to fill those bowls up more and more.

 Just as prayerlessness demonstrates pride and dependence on self, prayerfulness demonstrates humility and dependence on God. It goes without saying though that our heart posture when we pray is vital. Remember the story in Luke 18:9-14 of the two men who went up to pray in the Temple, the Pharisee and the sinner:

“Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all that I acquire.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (BSB).

‘God have mercy on me’… such a deceptively simple yet profound and powerful prayer. But one uttered often throughout scripture and even now, and answered just as often… from Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52), to the two blind men (Matthew 9:27-30), the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28, and the distraught father in Matthew 17:14-18. One that, sincerely offered, reflects true humility and the fact that we are indeed at the mercy of God. Thank God that He is infinitely merciful. There are times when I could not even find the words to pray, but that one sentence was all I could find myself saying. And if at any point you or I ever think we don’t need God’s mercy, well, that might be a clue of the kind of fragrance we are emitting.

Some other questions to reflect on are, are we praying with the mindset of bending God’s will to ours, or bending our will to God? Are our prayers motivated by love or selfish desire? When we pray in Jesus name, are those prayers in line with Jesus example and the instruction given in Ephesians 5:2(NLT)? To “live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.”

As we reflect on this post, there are quite a number of questions to ask ourselves. But one important thing to remember is that this is not written to condemn us, or to guilt trip us into praying, but to make us aware that we have a Father who is ever ready to help us. Reading Isaiah 65:1-2 quoted earlier really gives us a glimpse into God’s heart for us, one of a Father who is ready to help, to be found, a Father who reaches out, who, as the MSG Bible translates, keeps saying “I’m here, I’m right here” to a people that ignore Him (Verse 2). Beloved, knowing that, why would we not want to come before Him and commune with Him?

Thankfully, when we realise just what we are missing out on by thinking that we are more capable than God in running our lives, and turn to Him in repentance, He says “When I bring you from the peoples and gather you from the lands to which you have been scattered, I will accept you as a pleasing aroma. And I will show My holiness through you in the sight of the nations.” (Ezekiel 20:41, BSB). As long as we are alive, we always have a chance to come to Him and be accepted as a pleasing aroma.

I pray that as we reflect on the kind of fragrance we are to God, we will be reminded that we have a Father who wants to be involved in every aspect of our lives, not because He is a despot, but because He loves us, because He cares about every single aspect of our lives. May our lives and our prayers be ones that exalt Him and His will above all else. As we do so, I pray that we will be privileged to see the incredible beauty and power of a life and prayers that are a sweet smelling, smile-inducing savour to God. Amen and Amen.

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