The Salt of the Earth

It's been several weeks since our minister taught a Bible class on this verse from Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. It's one of those lessons that when you've grown up in the church, you've probably heard more lessons than you can count from this scripture. I always come away from it with a renewed sense of wanting to be the salt that flavors.

But this time not only did he talk about how it only takes a little salt to give flavor and that once that flavor is gone the salt is only good for walking on, but he brought out the point that salt makes us thirsty. It's true you know like when you have popcorn or chips you need something to drink to go along with it. I have to admit I'd never really thought about how salt makes us long for fresh water and the implications that has in my spiritual life.

The more I thought about how salt makes us thirsty, the more John 4:7-14 kept coming to mind. It says A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

So, this got me thinking along two points. The first is that if I'm living the life that Christ wants me to and I'm sharing him with those around me then I am the salt and those I come in contact with should become thirsty for the living water. There needs to be something that people will see in me that makes them want to know how I can still find joy with a 16 year migraine. If I've become the salt then those I come in contact with will want the Living Water. The second thing it made me think about is am I thirsty for the Living Water? Am I living my life in such a way, that I long for the Water that will satisfy my thirst for all time? Do I spend enough time with those who are salty so that my thirst for the Living Water becomes even stronger? Do I spend enough time in the Word to crave the Water of eternity?

Sometimes I really struggle with this. There are days and weeks when the migraine keeps me confined to the house and the devil whispers: “You don't need to study, It's o.k. to be grouchy and mean you hurt you have a right to be, and It's not just your job to be an example to your family...they're supposed to take care of you.” The devil knows right where to get us and how to make us doubt the Father, given enough time he'll have us craving bitter water filled with poison. I know that the Living Water has already won the war, and it's my job along with the rest of His followers to fight the battles until the day He returns to call us home.

Father, please help me to make others thirsty for your word. Help me to spend time with those who will make me long for you and to study more and more. Help me to become saltier each day and help me to season the lives of those I come in contact with, with a desire to get to know you better. In Jesus' name, Amen.