The bulletin today could be considered rather stinky.

Ya know that phrase "eat like a bird"? You know that birds really eat like pigs, right? If they could they'd eat more than their body weight, in fact some do. And then there's that phrase "sweat like a pig" which I've always wondered about. Do pigs really sweat that much? I've been around a lot of them, and while I can attest to their smell (and their eating habits) I'm not so sure I've ever noticed them sweating rivers.

I find myself thinking about deodorant today. Myself., I am that guy that sweats like a pig. When I wake up and get out of bed, I sweat. When I sit in church, I sweat. When I do anything vigorous, I really, really sweat. I sweat in summer, in winter, and everywhere in between. When I am working often times my friends will worry about me, asking if I am all right and trying to lighten my load. It doesn't hurt to sweat - I mean, it's not unhealthy and there is no pain involved. I guess they think I am about to keel over or something. On the odd occasion I will sweat so much my shirt will start to turn white from the salt. But best of all there is this stuff called deodorant. Thank goodness.

Not everyone sweats like that. Some barely break a sweat. Ladies don't sweat, they perspire. Or they "glow" depending on the region of the country you are from. What is unfair is that little kids sweat fiendishly but they don't smell. How is that? I've been told they don't have the right bacteria or something in their bodies until they reach a certain age. Dunno, some of them smell right away and others seem to never have trouble no matter how old they are.

It would seem to me that if we evolved (ha ha), the ones who stink bad enough to burn the hairs in your nose would never mate. I mean who looks at a stinky person and says "wow I want to have children that stink like that! And the ones who don't smell would have a better chance hunting and not being hunted. Regardless, is it a flaw that we are the way we are anyway? Did God botch it when he made us? It would seem so on the surface, but let's compare it with sin.

I mean, like sin little kids start out without any. In the bible God talks about the king who lives on an island, who has a stinky attitude. He says that he made him perfect, without flaw. I think he is talking about the spiritual nature. But the king allowed pride and self reliance to mar and corrupt his soul. He did it to himself. Stinking reminds us to be humble.

Kids eventually get to be an age where they know right from wrong. They aren't clean anymore. They are "rotten" and rotten things stink. So in a sense, again, it is a reminder that we need to wash up and renew ourselves constantly, else we're going to smell.

Finally, some people really struggle with sin. They have lots of it in their lives. They keep taking showers by repenting and cleaning up their act, but they get dirty again. Others don't bother - they just slather on the deodorant. So instead of taking care of the problem at the root, they try to hide it. The more they stink, the more they douse the stuff on. They wrap themselves with creeds of men and other things that "smell good" on the surface but turn out to be trash in and of themselves. Phew!

I think after a while people's noses do burn out and they can't smell themselves anymore. At long last they think they are free, they are liberated, they have nothing to worry about. But they stink to the rest of us. What should we do if we find ourselves in such a situation? Well I would hope have the sense of a pig. Remember the ones the demons went into? They ran down a cliff and into the sea. Trying to get clean, no doubt, from something that was, if you don't mind my saying, rather fowl.

Randy