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I hadn’t driven my car for four days and from the outside all looked fine. I passed it every day when I went outside to walk, relax on the swing, or take out the trash. I never felt as though something was wrong with my car. Not until I opened the door.

The sense of smell supposedly triggers more memories than any other sense. I believe it. One whiff of the interior took me back 20 years when I blamed my son Geoffrey for leaving his basketball shoes in the car. Later I discovered the source of the foul smell was a bag of raw fish underneath a seat.

This time it was two pounds of once-frozen shrimp. Disgusted by both the odor and the loss of shrimp, I held the bag with an outstretched arm and dropped it in the trash.

My car is otherwise clean, maintained and rides well. So, is the smell a problem for me?

Yes!

I’m now in the process of airing out the car and using every product I know to use to remove the smell that not only triggered a memory, but a Bible verse.

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees by comparing them to whitewashed tombs – beautiful on the outside but inwardly filled with dead men’s bones. “In the same way,” He continued in Matthew 23:28, “on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

The familiarity I lack with tombs, I make up for with knowledge of the smelly interior of a clean car. And I don’t want my life to be like my car. Regardless of outward appearances, inside I want my heart and mind to be fully alive and growing, and I never want my attitude to stink.

Ronny Michel may be reached at rmichel@rtconline.com.