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.