Mike and I swapped houses with friends this week and are spending a few days in their home near the beach in coastal South Carolina. Visitors and residents alike are staying well apart while swimming or beach-walking, but one thing we're all enjoying is the briny air and salt-saturated waves. It smells a little like potato chips in bloom.
Until the pandemic made indoor gatherings prohibitive for a time, we perched on a pew every Sunday surrounded by people seasoned by life, by faith. People who enhance the flavor of my life as well as those of so many others. People who intentionally engage the culture not only to preserve but serve it.
As a substance salt may seem homogenous, but sodium chloride is formulated in dozens of varieties. Browse the aisles of a specialty store and you’ll find rose-colored salt mined in the Himalayas, charcoal flakes from the Mediterranean region, and black Hiwa Kai or red Alae from the Hawaiian islands. Beautifully diverse, just like God's children.
In our post-truth culture, this saltiness is increasingly unacceptable. Polls continue to produce statistics claiming those without religious affiliation, the “nones,” are the fastest growing demographic group. A generation of young adults raised in the church is moving away from its influence, convinced Christians don’t represent the values most important to them.
The preservative and medicinal properties of salt are well known. But in a culture that increasingly marginalizes the importance of faith, how can we demonstrate a genuine concern for others in the ways Christ intended?
Salt is never consumed solely by itself. When we come on too strong, we turn others away. Colossians 4:6 reminds us to let our conversation “be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
In the Kalahari Desert region of southern Africa, residents use salt to their advantage. The local monkeys can locate water when the humans cannot. People trap a monkey, feed it salt until it’s extremely thirsty, and then release it. They follow as the monkey runs straight to the water. Our challenge as followers of Christ is to make others thirsty for the living water that is Jesus.
Just as our bodies require sodium chloride to sustain life, we need the body of Christ. When Jesus told his followers “You are the salt of the earth,” he meant it.
“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.” Matthew 5:13 MSG
It's time for us to stop focusing so much of our energies on peripheral stuff and instead live in such love and generosity of spirit that others become thirsty for that which spiritually hydrates us.
Seasoning draws attention to the food it enhances, not itself. Serve others in a way that demonstrates your love for every kind of person Jesus loves.
The taste and fragrance of faith. It’s a little like potato chips in bloom.
Adapted from This Life We Share by Maggie Wallem Rowe. Copyright © 2020. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
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Maggie's first book, This Life We Share, has just released. One reader's dog, as pictured below, has thoroughly digested it! If you're reading it, would you be so kind as to leave a brief review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Christianbook.com or Goodreads? Ratings and reviews help readers discover new titles and get the book into more hands, minds, and hearts. Thank you.
