Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Salt Unaware


You are the salt of the earth. Matt 5:13

During construction of the CMDA headquarters, the project manager called me to schedule lunch to discuss “something.” I assumed it was it was a problem with the project. After the meal and small talk he told me how God had used my witness to affect his life. He said, “I asked you to lunch just to tell you that I have decided to give my life to Jesus Christ.” Wow!
–Gene Rudd, M.D.

Most of us would love to be part of such an experience, but even when our faith is real, we may fail to effectively fulfill our responsibility to be witnesses. Jesus used salt as a metaphor. As doctors, we understand this analogy. Salt balance is critical in our bodies. The beat of our hearts, the movement of our limbs, the processing of thoughts are each dependent on the proper balance of salt. A 10 to 20 percent deviation from norm can result in death.

Jesus said that his followers are salt. The problem with our witness is that we often fail at being the right balance of salt. Many of us know of fellow believers who are either hyponatremic (not salty enough) or hypernatremic (too salty). Maybe we are like that ourselves. We either fail to provide a witness or we tend to dump too much salt on others. In both situations, we fail to make the gospel more flavorful (“seasoned with salt”). Such salt imbalances are ineffective, even lethal, to our witness.

Most of the time our salt is tasted when we are not even aware like Dr. Rudd describes in his experience above. But in order for us to be a tasteful and preserving salt when we are unaware, we must be intentional in our prayer life and faithful in our Christ-likeness each day. We are not likely to bring someone to our Lord if we do not pray regularly that God use us for that purpose. Our words of Truth, when they come, are not likely to be heard if we live no differently than those who never knew Him. We should ask God to place one person on our hearts for whom we pray regularly that they might know Him. We should walk through our world daily, knowing that the world is watching a life devoted to and changed by God.

Dear God,
Please place on my heart and in my prayers one person whom You wish for me to bring You. And let me live so that my life draws them toward You rather than turning them away.
Amen

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