What Are You Smelling Like?

Someone once said, “If you spend all day in a fish market, you’ll leave smelling like fish—even if you never touched one. But if you spend your day in a perfume shop, you’ll leave smelling good—even if you never bought anything.” That’ll preach. Because the truth is, your environment will eventually rub off on you.

You may think you can hang around negativity without becoming negative. You may think you can constantly listen to gossip without eventually repeating some. You may think you can surround yourself with people who have no dreams, no goals and no desire to grow—and somehow remain hungry for your own destiny. But sooner or later, what surrounds you starts getting inside you.

Spend enough time around people who complain, and eventually everything will look like a problem. Spend enough time around people who make excuses, and eventually you’ll start finding reasons why you can’t do what God told you to do. Spend enough time around people who gossip, and before long you’ll start discussing people instead of discussing possibilities. Spend enough time around people who are bitter, and eventually you’ll start carrying offenses that weren’t even yours.

But the opposite is also true. Spend time around people of faith, and suddenly mountains don’t look quite as big. Spend time around people of action, and you’ll start feeling uncomfortable sitting still. Spend time around people of gratitude, and you’ll begin noticing blessings you used to overlook. Spend time around people with vision, and you’ll start seeing possibilities where you once saw problems. Spend time around people who pray, and eventually prayer won’t seem like an obligation—it’ll become your lifestyle.

That is why you have to be careful about who has access to your spirit. Everybody can’t sit on the front row of your life. You can love everybody without giving everybody influence. You can forgive everybody without inviting everybody back into your inner circle. You can pray for people without allowing their dysfunction to become your atmosphere.

Some relationships aren’t necessarily bad—they’re just bad for where God is taking you. There comes a season when you have to ask yourself: What is this environment producing in me? Am I stronger because of the people around me? Am I dreaming bigger? Am I praying more? Am I becoming more disciplined? Am I becoming more loving? Am I becoming more like the person God created me to be? Or am I constantly angry, discouraged, distracted and doubting myself?

The Bible says, “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” — 1 Corinthians 15:33. In other words, association produces influence. And sometimes the breakthrough you’ve been praying for doesn’t require God to change your circumstances. Sometimes God is waiting for you to change your surroundings.

You keep asking God to give you a different attitude while you keep sitting in the same atmosphere. You keep asking God for greater faith while spending all your time listening to people who tell you what cannot be done. You keep asking God to enlarge your vision while surrounding yourself with people committed to thinking small. Maybe it’s time to change rooms. Maybe it’s time to change conversations.

Because where you spend your time will eventually leave its fragrance on your life. And here’s the part that really got me: You’re somebody’s environment too.

When people spend time around you, what do they smell like when they leave? Do they leave encouraged or exhausted? Do they leave believing or doubting? Do they leave inspired or defeated? Do they leave closer to God—or carrying more confusion than when they arrived?

Because while we are examining everybody else’s fragrance, God may be asking us to check our own. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 2:15, “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ.”

Think about that. Your life ought to carry a fragrance. Your faith ought to leave something in the room after you’re gone. Your kindness ought to linger. Your encouragement ought to linger. Your integrity ought to linger. Your love ought to linger. Your testimony ought to linger. People ought to encounter you and somehow walk away believing that life can get better, that dreams are still possible, and that God is still good.

So choose your environment carefully. Get around people who challenge you to grow. Get around people who celebrate your progress without competing with your purpose. Get around people who will pray for you, correct you, encourage you and remind you who you are when life makes you forget. And most importantly, spend enough time in the presence of God that when you walk into a room, some of His fragrance walks in with you. Because sooner or later, whatever you stay around long enough...you’re going to start smelling like it.

And when people encounter me, I don't want them smelling bitterness, jealousy, anger, gossip or defeat. I want them to smell the evidence that I’ve been somewhere near Jesus. Sometimes the quickest way to change what’s happening inside you is to change what you keep allowing around you.