Salt keeps evil away

For those who are unaware, if you have an ant problem in your homes, especially around your cupboards and shelves, sprinkling salt on the shelves will keep the ants away.

While ants might not be the best example to represent evil, they are sufficient, since they try to eat my food. Evil little things.

In applying this to our real lives, i feel that perhaps the key to being good salt to the world is that we realize our role in keeping the world safe. Like in my case, the ants were coming to take away something i valued a lot, which was my food, and the salt helped keep them away. In the same way the world is filled with evil, and the evil one, aka Satan, is always trying to steal away what we treasure most. He takes lives, souls, brings disaster etc (although some might argue that these are wraths of God rather than moves of Satan, but that's an argument for another day).

Where do we fit in? As salt, our role is to ensure that Satan is not allowed to sneak in and steal what the world values.

What exactly do we protect?

Values. Morals. Justice. Human rights.

These were the first things that came to mind. I'm sure each of us has our own opinion of what is valued by the world, by us, and it's okay i guess.

Maybe we aren't supposed to just spread the gospel, maybe we are supposed to do so much more.

Salt works best when it hurts

If you're like me, and prefer quick and painful to slow and painful, then you would have, at some point of your life, used salt to treat your wounds. I remember using it to treat my ulcers, i would wet my finger, add a teaspoon of salt onto it, then press it down hard onto my ulcer. It hurt like crazy. But i would continue to do that about 5 times in a row, with a guggling break once every minute.

Low and behold, the ulcer is gone by the next 2 days.

If you've gone further, maybe you've tried washing your cuts with salt water, it hurts, but it beats using dettol or other antiseptics.

I've been into my fair share of accidents, from car crashes, to fractured arm, being thrown off a bike and crashing across 5 metres of rock, gravel and dirt to mouth/gum ulcers. I remember my biking accident on ubin all those years ago. I crashed into a tree at full speed (i was a cycling noob back then), the bike got compressed beyond repair and i fell face first across some pretty rough terrain. I had gashes on both arms, and legs as i tried to break my fall.

The interesting thing is that i didn't use any plaster, i've always had this idea that wounds heal faster if they are exposed to fresh air. And since it was on ubin, i got up, walked to the beach, and stuck my arm in. It hurt. But i just figured it would heal faster.

The world is hurting, just look around you. Earthquakes and natural disasters loom over many countries, and just the same, wars break out amongst people almost everyday. We fight, we destroy and we condemn each other. People start to lose faith and hope, and the end of the world, by our own doing, seems awfully close.

As tempting as it seems to just put on a plaster onto those wounds, perhaps its time to add salt to those wounds. I'm NOT saying we mock the affected countries. That would be a direct violation of Jesus' "love your neighbor" command. I'm suggesting that we re-look the way Christianity could affect the world.

We are not called to be plasters and light to the world, but salt and light. Salt heals, but first it hurts, perhaps there's a greater implication to this analogy, then you, or I can imagine.

Salt makes people thirsty

Everyone is searching for someone, and while man shall not live on bread alone, he certainly can't go for long without water.

I feel that we are meant to make the world thirsty. And when they get thirsty, they need to drink. Many will search for water from their own cisterns, from wells they dig, from holes in the ground, or from clouded streams and rivers. But regardless of where they drink from, we need to keep making them thirsty. Why? So that some day, they might come to realize why we ourselves are not like them, why we ourselves are not thirsty.

That reason is simple. We have Jesus. He is the stream of living water, the source of restoration and the cure for thirstiness.

The way we live our lives has to be in the world, but not of the world. It has to be different. The goals is to make them thirsty, to the point where Jesus is the only solution.

I know i've been in their place before. I've been thirsty yet tried to find my own water source, only to be salted by strong faith driven Christians within our church to come to the conclusion and conviction that Jesus is indeed the way the truth and the life as He claimed.

Isn't it time the rest of the world saw things the same way?

However, it is important to recognize that once the world gets thirsty for Jesus, we do not attach ourselves to the gospel. That would be akin to getting them to drink saltwater, which in fact dehydrates even further.

As ambassadors of Christ, we simply show people our Lord, without the complexities of the church, worship styles, theological disputes and so on. Why should a pre-believer need align himself with our church styles and beliefs? Aside from the concrete ones, like the Trinity, Jesus, etc (see Nicrene Creed)

What the world needs is Jesus, not us. Be salt, make them thirsty, then back off, and watch in awe as they find content in the stream of living water.

*These are my reflections as i explore the topic of salt.

SALT

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth.

There have been many interpretations about what exactly it means to be "salt" in the context of our world today. In the next few entries, i'm inviting you to join me, as we explore what it means to be salt to the world, beyond the typical views.

*These are my reflections as i explore the topic of salt.