My farmer friend Pat, whom I’ve known for over 50 years, shot me a text the other evening telling me they were going to be at my old family farm the next day. His family had purchased about 230 acres of the old place several years ago. He said if I wanted, I could come by and ride along. He didn’t have to ask twice!

I showed up the next morning shortly after they had gotten started. I rode the rest of the morning as they were preparing the soil to be planted. I rode in the afternoon on the tractor doing the planting and I rode in the sprayer for a while later that day. 

As I stepped out of the planting tractor and with the soil freshly stirred, a gust of wind lifted a bit of dust from the ground. It was a damp, musty smell that hit my memory like a flood. For one brief moment, I wasn’t a seventy-year-old man navigating the age of transition; I was a ten-year-old boy with bare feet sunk into freshly tilled soil. In an instant, I traversed sixty years of history and was completely caught in the moment.

For the past week, that moment has stayed with me and I’ve contemplated it from many angles. Scientists tell us that smell is one of the strongest triggers of memory. More than sight, touch, taste, or hearing, nothing transports us quite like scent. One breath can carry us across decades.

As I reflected on that moment later, my thoughts drifted toward Scripture and the sweet aroma of incense rising before God. Again and again, the Bible speaks of fragrance carrying meaning heavenward — offerings, incense, the prayers of the saints rising before Him. The Apostle Paul even speaks of Christ’s followers being a “sweet aroma.” 

It made me wonder… if one breath of soil could instantly awaken memories buried deep within me, what must the prayers of God’s people be like before the heart of God? Then my thoughts took me deeper. “If Scripture so often describes God through the language of human senses, what other traces of that could be found throughout His Word?”

Though there are many, many scriptural references describing the various “senses” of God, there is one in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians that encapsulates the whole concept. 

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” Philippians 2:5-6 (ESV)

In Jesus, God Himself stepped into the world of human senses.

He smelled bread baking in village homes.
He felt dusty roads beneath His feet.
He heard children laughing in crowded streets.
He touched lepers.
He tasted wine.

He wept tears.
And according to Hebrews, He even “tasted death for everyone.”

The Creator of soil stepped into the dust of His own creation.

My friend, I cannot possibly know your situation, but I know that God does. He sees you, hears your cries, and understands the burdens you carry. The God who stepped into the dust of His own creation has not forgotten His people. He is fully invested in the lives He formed from the soil of the earth.

Grace and peace,

Jarvis—From Soil To Soul