Salt or Pepper

“(Food) does not show its real taste till you have added the salt.” (C.S. Lewis)

I love salt…on just about everything one would expect to put salt on. Especially margaritas and street pretzels!  And having somewhat (controlled) high blood pressure, I know it’s not really good for me. But to be honest,  it’s just such an amazing flavor enhancer. Chocolate covered pretzels? Shoot me now!

In my life, I want to be a flavor enhancer. Jesus called us the salt of the earth. "You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor?” (Matthew 5:13)

After four years of literally the most stressful time in my life, I’ve taken the last few months to spend a lot of time alone to decompress. Been doing a lot of writing, praying, and reading. Admittedly, some wasteful moments catching up on movies and TV.  Both of which really do have a way of speaking to the soul especially if one discerns some redemptive qualities. I’m not making excuses…there is a lot of redemption out there if we look for it. Too many “Christians” criticize the media and entertainment as luring us into its secular trap (and sometimes it does). And this is the exact place I sense God wants us to be as true salt…flavoring the industry with His presence. Not unlike Mark Burnett and Roma Downey did with The Bible series on the History Channel.  

In the process of stressors and decompression over the recent past, I feel in many ways, I have lost my saltiness. I’ve been walking around with self-pity, lack of trust, grumbling and complaining (if even to myself), yet knowing through this all God loves me unconditionally, even granted me peace and allowed me to wallow in my disillusionment. More like pepper than salt. Frankly, the last five or six months the focus has been on restoring my soul. Breathing. Breathing in the breath of God. And my lungs are filling up again. It has been awesome to walk in praise and thanksgiving and see Him use me to shatter stereotypical illusions that people have about Western Evangelical Christians, and more importantly, Jesus.

The transformation from pepper to salt isn’t easy. It’s painful actually. In the natural I want to think that the world and God owe me something. (Pretty idiotic!) The world owes me nothing and I don’t deserve anything from God who already paid everything and expressed His unconditional love, mercy and grace through Jesus. He is the focus; not the world, not religion, it’s all about Jesus. My life verse for over 30 years has been Philippians 3:10 – “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death...".

I’ve been learning that one can’t experience resurrection power without experiencing suffering and death to self. If I want to be salty again, I must continue to die to self and live for God. It’s so liberating when I reach the place of thinking no one owes me anything, that self-pity is a mask of selfishness, and that grumbling and complaining are masks of distrust. The masks are off. 

And salt has never tasted so good.

“Salt is good for seasoning. But if it loses its flavor, how do you make it salty again?" (Mark 9:50)