Salt

I’ve been thinking about salt today.  Random?  Maybe.  Theological?  absolutely.  Relevant? I think so.  First of all, I have bypassed the candy bowl in my office all week-long and the thought keeps recurring how these days I prefer salty snacks above sweet ones.  It’s like my sweet tooth is disappearing.  Things that used to make my mouth drool, not so much anymore.  Give me salty snacks and savory food choices and I’m all in!

Then I started thinking about all of the uses for salt.  We salt fresh meats in order to preserve them.  Bacon is good!  (Sorry Vegetarian friends, I just couldn’t give it up)  I even came to love beef jerky these past several months.  But ultimately it preserves food so that they have a longer shelf life.  Salt preserves.

Salt helps wounds to heal faster.  It may sting like crazy but as the salt cleanses and help dry up wounds it promotes your body’s natural healing. Salt heals.

Salt makes food taste better by enhancing flavor.  While it’s all in the palate of the taster we know that if food tastes bland to us we an add salt and it brings out the natural flavors that already exist and bring balance to super sweet food (that’s why some of us love salted caramel!)  Salt flavors.

So if you have mosquito bites or irritated skin, salt can relieve your itches.  Same concept as the healing, it dries out itchy wounds and cleanses and calms the skin so that the itchy places can heal. Salt relieves.

The granular salt also comes in handy when it comes to cleaning.  It can help clean your teeth with baking soda or it can be used to scrub disgusting sinks or places around you household.  It exfoliates your skin leaving you feeling smoother and fresher.   Did you know that if you spill something on your carpet or your shirt that if you soak it or apply cold salt water it will help remove the stains?  (I definitely needed this handy trick as spastic as I can be!) Salt cleanses.

If you have managed to set something on your stove on fire, salt can snuff out a grease fire.  It suffocates the fire saving your kitchen from a complete disaster.  Salt extinguishes.

Salt also helps melt ice and snow.  Greg and I learned the value of putting down a little salt on our sidewalk and driveway when we lived in the mountains.  By lowering the freezing temperature of water it helps snow and ice disappear faster with a little help of the sunshine.  Salt deices.

There are more uses but you get the point.  Salt can accomplish so much and has great value.  No wonder Jesus said to us “You are the salt of the earth!” (Matthew 5:13) We have so much to offer the world around us.  We are called, even commanded to be salt to our weary world.  We as Christians have an opporutnity to enahnce the world, if we so choose.

I am pleased to be a part of a program called SALT – Spiritual Academy for Leading Transformation.  Our District is working to help lift up lay persons in our churches to hear how God is calling them to be salt in their communities.  What ways might God be calling them to help serve or further God’s Kingdom?  Because ministry does not have to wait for a pastor to be initiated or created!

It brings life, it preserves life, it enhances life, it comforts irritated life, it cleans up messes, it puts out messes, and it melts the frozen places in our lives.  I’m pretty sure Jesus meant for us to be a part of all of those things.  Because the world needs all of those things.  So your turn.  Go and be salt.  Not salty- to be clear.  Salt.

Grace and Peace,

Lory Beth