Sunday, October 6, 2013

Melting Mountains- Scentsy Style.


 
Kiamichi Mountains in Autumn

Scentsy. Somehow I've avoided it for several years, as I'm leery about jumping on board of anything that may turn out to be a fad. However, this sweet, scent manufacturing, wickless candle company has grown and stuck around long enough for me to consider purchasing one of their products. Every time I've visited someone and asked what that wonderful fragrance in their home was, they always replied, "Scentsy!"

So there I was among some of my favorite people, sitting at a table on a friend's patio a few Sunday evenings ago. We were gabbing it up, passing little scented canisters around, piling up our favorites and discussing in depth which was best, which made us hungry, which we hated, and so on and so forth.

So I placed an order.

I was so excited that I went out first thing the next day and bought one of those cute little warmers- one that I felt matched my home decor... after all, if your home is going to smell lovely it must look the part, right? I got a Better Homes & Gardens wax block to try, since I'm too impatient to wait for my order to come, and I ran home to plug it in. Within minutes, my home was filled with a beautiful fragrance that made me want to take off my shoes, relax, and curl up on the couch with a good book and a cup of coffee. (I'm sure a candle could have done the same thing, but where's the fun in that?)

Fast forward to this morning. I was praying in church for some friends and aquaintences... several of whom are facing insurmountable odds right now. Mountains, if you will. It's as if they were just walking along the path of life and BAM!! Someone threw a mountain right onto their smooth stretch of concrete. Just when everything was going great, they're faced with a mountain: poor health, lost loved ones, job loss, you name it. So I started to pray for them, one by one, as they came to mind.

Then I remembered a verse- one of my favorites:

"The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth." Psalm 97:5

And I started praying for my friends again- that their mountains would melt away in God's presence.

But then I had an amazing flashback to that night around the patio table with my friends. Someone said that they left their Scentsy pot on all of the time so their home would always smell great. Then another friend spoke up and said that the consultant had shared with her that leaving the pot on won't make a difference, because the warming of the wax is what releases the fragrance.

I started to think about melting wax. It's slow. It's a process. The rate at which it melts is directly related to the temperature of the environment it's in and is proportional to the size of the wax block.

Now check out Hebrews 12:28-29
"Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."
 
And I couldn't help but draw a parallel.
 
If God is a consuming fire, and the mountains melt like wax before Him, then surely the degree to which we allow God's presence into our circumstances affects the rate at which those mountains melt.
 
I've stood before mountains in my own life before and found one thing to be true: I can't carry them. I hear people say "carry your burdens to the cross." Burdens I can carry... but mountains? That's another story. Mountains are immovable by my own human strength. They are places where I need to INVITE God to come. I must invite Him to come to my mountain and melt it- remove it- for me.
 
And as He melts it away, ever so slowly at times, a beautiful fragrance is released in and through my life. And I'm reminded of 2 Corinthians 2:15, "For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing."
 
Those mountains are so hard to live through at times. Waiting for God to completely remove them can seem like eternity. Sometimes we wonder if we'll ever see the light. No one else seems to understand- they keep telling us to "suck it up" or "get over it" or "let it go." Sigh.
 
But be encouraged: You can't do it on your own, but as you invite Jesus Christ into your circumstances and walk with Him faithfully as He melts the mountains in your life, not only will you see victory, but in the process your life will be a fragrance that is pleasing to Him and ministers to others.
 
So to all of my friends facing enormous mountains today: I'm praying for you. Yet not as I was. Not that God would simply remove the mountain, but that you would have the courage and faith to invite Him into those intimate, scary places of your life where you're not sure you can trust Him anymore. That you'd rest in His presence. That as He melts the mountains away, He would grant you patience, endurance and joy. And that as He melts them away a beautiful fragrance would be released in and through you to minister to others, refresh your weary spirit and to please God.