Worthless Salt

Worthless Salt

Last week I attended a youth pastor’s retreat in the mountains of Colorado. It was through Leader Treks. I’d never attended a Leader Treks retreat before and I was incredibly surprised. It was both refreshing and insightful.

Before our sessions, Doug Franklin had us take time to do a little personal Bible study. Refreshing. Quite different from the many large youth pastor’s conferences I’ve attended in the past where you can become so busy with all the good stuff there is to see and learn and hear that you can forget to take time to be still and know God. I appreciated that part of the retreat probably most of all, although I enjoyed the whole thing.

One of the days we were encouraged to read from Matthew 5 where Jesus delivers the beatitudes. It was a good study that had us dig into our hearts and consider what really spoke to us in those verses. So I got to verse 13. “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.” As much as I wanted to apply one of the “blessed are you…” verses to my life at that moment, what really stuck out to me was ‘don’t lose your saltiness.’

As God often does with His word when He wants to drive a message home to me, later in the retreat someone quoted that very verse. Being the kinesthetic learner that I am I drew a saltshaker on my paper and asked myself what God was trying to say to me.

Surely I’m still salty… I’m in youth ministry. Teens are coming to know Christ. I’m serving the Lord – I’m salty… aren’t I? 

The passage stuck with me and I carried it down off that glorious mountain in Keystone Colorado, across the plains of Kansas, past a couple hundred windmills, through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and right to Ohio where I live.

Don’t loose your saltiness.

So I lay awake in bed and pondered it. How does one loose their saltiness?

Coming home and starting right into the busyness that is my life… my family, housework, youth ministry, young adults ministry, pre marital counseling, homeschooling, children’s ministry, writing… In the midst of everything I do in my life, I think I get what God was trying to say to me.

I’ve only got so much salt. God can give me more as I seek Him out and allow Him to. But until I do… I’ve only got so much salt. Where am I going to sprinkle it? How am I going to use it?

When you make chocolate chip cookies, most recipes call for one teaspoon of salt. So how many batches of chocolate chip cookies can I bake if I’ve only got one teaspoon of salt? Can I stretch it and make two batches? Maybe…  I mean, I’ve skimped on ingredient portions before and no one was the wiser… but how about three batches? Four? Five? At what point does my salt become ineffective in my cookies rendering it “unsalty?”

I’d never thought of it before. I’ve wondered how salt can loose its saltiness. It’s a mineral – salt is what it is. But when salt is used out there in the real world if it’s spread too thin eventually you’re not going to taste it anymore.

What good is it when it’s lost its saltiness? The Bible says its no longer good for anything. Yikes. Scary.

I have a spouse and children to love. I’m in youth ministry. I’m a writer. I work with young adults… with college students… children’s ministry… all of these things are important and some of them are things I know God has called me to do. But often times in ministry it comes down to, there’s a need and someone has to fill it and I know I am capable. I’ll do it.

I’ve got the salt… I can share. I’ll sprinkle some here and some here and some here and we can just go for broke and try making five or six patches of chocolate chip cookies with my one-teaspoon… as if God doesn’t have storehouses of salt and other workers with teaspoons… but I forget that and then I get to the very saltless tasting place in my life where I’m trying to do it all when what I really need to do is be still and know that He is God.

Jesus went away to pray. He went alone. He went to secluded places. This is Jesus we are talking about. He went away to pray! Jesus, who really could do it all – took the time to be still, alone and pray. He had a purpose and stayed on track with it. (We talked about that on the retreat too but I’ll save it for another blog).

I on the other hand, often allow myself to become so busy salting everything that I fail to go to the storehouses and refill my spoon. Instead of doing a few things excellently, I end up doing a bunch of things nominally and perhaps with very little salt left on the spoon. Jesus said that is the kind of stuff only good for trampling under foot. Worthless salt.

I don’t want to be worthless, unsalty salt.

So, I guess coming down from that Colorado mountain, I am reminded that I need to be headed to that storehouse more, talking to Him and getting His direction. I also need to quit trying to bake multiple batches of cookies with just a teaspoon of salt. I’ve got to focus on what God has told me to do and pray that He will raise up more saltshakers to help with the other batches.

It’s a lot to swallow right now. I’ve still got to take some time and be still so I can listen and refill. But I’m glad He put that image in my head. I pray that my little rant might touch someone else.

Stay salty. It matters.

Carol