Salt

It's very uplifting to me that Jesus refers to the Church as the salt of the earth, maybe that's because I love salt. If my wife and I go out to dinner with friends and there are chips and salsa, we have to get our own basket because we put "too much" salt on them. I love salt. I've been known to just pour some salt in the palm of my hand and lick it out (you're welcome for that image).

Salt is a catalyst for change. Salt betters - it enhances the flavor of food that you put it on. Salt transforms - if you pour salt on ice it will lower the freezing point of ice, and it will melt more quickly. Salt protects - if you get a cut or a wound on the beach, you're instructed to go in the ocean (where there is SALTwater) because salt will kill bacteria and cause your wound to dry more quickly. Salt preserves - because salt kills bacteria, often people will use salt to preserve meat and other foods. When Jesus refers to the Church as the salt of the earth, He's saying that we should be the catalyst for change in our world.

On Easter we celebrate God changing the world forever by sending His Son to the cross to die for us. However, we also celebrate and are inspired by the fact that God gives the Church the same power that raised Christ from the dead, so that we can join with God to change the world.

The problem is that many of us don't notice the fact that we're losing our saltiness. Many of us aren't even aware that the power that was supposed to be given to us to make us stand out and make a difference in the world is being held back by our own inaction. Many of us speak with our lives that we'd rather celebrate Easter by remembering the way He lived rather than celebrating Easter by living the way He lived.

I suggest that Easter should be the day that we would be reminded of how we should be living. What if Easter became the day that we don't just celebrate what Jesus did for us on the cross, but what Jesus is doing through us in the world? What if Easter was the day that we remembered the Son of God who died on a cross for us, so that we could be freed from our sins, and that we remembered that He died so that would be empowered to change the world?

What if your dreams for your life revolved less around the amount of money you'll make or about the person that you'll marry or around the things that you'll have, but rather your dreams would revolve around what God could do through you to change the world?

We all should be able to find the thing that drives us crazy. The thing that when we look at the world, we get so angry that we're forced to do something about it. A great author, Bill Hybels, calls this your Holy Discontent. Your holy discontent is the thing that keeps you up at night. It's the thing that weighs heavy on your heart. It's the burden that God has given you, and this burden is a blessing.

I pray that all of us find our area of holy discontent. I pray that God opens your eyes to something that you feel compelled to change. I pray that you learn to take a leap of faith and trust God, especially when you know you can't accomplish the task on your own. I pray that we all choose to radically follow God's calling to solve this area of holy discontent.

I don't know what your holy discontent is, but I can tell you what it looks like. Your holy discontent is the thing that you know God wants changed in this world. When you look at this world, and you say "This isn't right! Someone should do something about that!" that's your area of holy discontent. Maybe you feel compelled to end world poverty or sex trafficking or social inequalities. Maybe you're infuriated with the fact that divorce rates are so high or teen pregnancy or that the less fortunate are mistreated. Maybe you know that the church should be the place where the lost, broken, and poor in spirit feel like they can get rest, but you don't see that most places and it upsets you. Whatever it is, that burden is a blessing. I pray that God blesses you with a burden.

I know that it feels like these goals are too big or impossible, but we choose to dream big, because anything else would be an insult to God. We choose not to limit the power of God, and instead we choose to rely fully on the power of God to accomplish what we could never accomplish on our own. When we do that we can experience freedom. We can let God worry about the results, because we're not called to be successful. We're called to be faithful.

Salt of the earth people ask God for a burden. Salt of the earth people look for their area of holy discontent. When they find it, they don't back away from the challenge. Salt of the earth people take the leap of faith, trust God, and rely on Him to take care of the results.