Salty

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.” Mark 9:50 

  

  I had a teacher who liked to tell a story about a businessman he knew. When the businessman was interviewing a new hire, he would take them out to eat. He would watch and see if they tasted their food before adding salt, or would salt their food before tasting it. He would not hire anyone who salted their food before tasting it. 

  Salt adds flavor. It can enhance good food, and it can make bland food tolerable to eat. Every Christian should lead a life that has a good ‘flavor”. We should never leave a bad taste in the mouth of anyone. 

  The businessman did not care whether or not someone used salt, but that the person he hired could make good judgments and not make mindless assumptions. He wanted thoughtful people to work for him. 

  Jesus wants followers who have a good flavor in their lives. Godliness should follow in our wake. People around us should be positively affected by how we live. Bitterness has no place in the life of a Christian. They will recognize us by the good we do. “Saltiness” should mark the life of every believer. 

  Often, we are consumed by cares, worry, troubles can surround the Christian. We are not immune to the vicissitudes of life. I know how hard it can be to remain cheerful when feeling bad, seeking to overcome an illness or living daily with an ongoing affliction. 

  It is good to take stock of our actions and reactions. We need not pretend we are happy when feeling miserable. Yet we should remember that no matter our current afflictions, we have a loving God who cares for us and comforts us in all of our troubles. Even in the worst of times we can dig deep and bring up the salt of our salvation through the grace of God and our Lord Jesus Christ. 

  Prayer: Dear Lord, help our lives to be salty in the best way, reflecting our faith and our love for You in every situation. Amen. 

   

Faith Versus Magical Thinking

“‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against your magic charms with which you ensnare people like birds and I will tear them from your arms; I will set free the people that you ensnare like birds. Ezekiel 13:20 

  

  Magical Thinking is a psychological term about making a false attribution of causal relationships between events and actions. In layman’s terms it is connecting things that have nothing to do with each other. Such as, I ate a candy bar and my stomach quit hurting, so candy bars must cure upset stomachs. It is being ridiculous. 

  As someone who has lived with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for years, I can tell you that I have come across many quack cures. One of the most ridiculous was a $38 bottle mixture of plants and weeds that actually made me ill. Medicine shows and miracle cures were common in the American West in the late 19th and early 20th century. Sadly, such nonsense continues today. At best it is useless, at worst it is dangerous. 

  We need faith, and we need to use the good sense God has given us. The Apostle Paul was a great man of faith, and yet he also believed in sensible medicine. 

  

Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses. 1 Timothy 5:23 

  

  Those who suffer from a variety of illnesses should always pray for healing and help from the Lord, and also make good use of doctors and medication for infirmities and diseases. 

  Do not confuse faith with magical thinking. People can become convinced of all sorts of dangerous nonsense. We need to be wise, use good judgment, and always pray for guidance from the Lord. Do not become a victim of magical thinking. 

  Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to use the good sense you have given us. Delivers us from charlatans and so-called miracle cures. And from well meaning, but foolish believers. Give us wisdom in all things. Amen. 

Witnessing About The Lord

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. Acts 4:31 

  

  I wanted to become a salesperson. The opportunity to prove myself was soon to arrive, and I began to struggle with my self-consciousness and timidity when it came to speaking before groups of people. I was so shy that I had taken an “Incomplete” on assignments that required me to speak before the entire class in High School. How would I ever become a salesman now? 

  The understanding came to me that if being a salesperson was “all about me” I was doomed to failure. But then I realized it was not about me, but rather about the products I would be presenting and selling. So, I put my focus there, upon the point of the matter, and not about me, and I succeeding in becoming a salesman. 

  It is a similar situation when presenting and witnessing about Jesus to others. Christians get self-conscious worrying about failing to do a good job, looking awkward or even foolish. Yet witnessing about Jesus is “about Jesus”. Sharing Christ is not about you, except for telling others of the benefits you have received as a believer. Keep the focus on Jesus when presenting Him to others and you will succeed. 

  We all have a story to tell, a difficulty, loss, or painful event in our lives. When we put that suffering within the context of our faith, we can bring people to Jesus through presenting our experience of His love. We survived, we overcame, and we endured not because of us, but because of Him.  

  Being bold in the Lord relies upon our focus. Presenting and witnessing about the Lord requires concentrating on the object of our Faith. It is not about us, only about Jesus. Remember that fact and you will find the boldness to share your love of Jesus with others. 

  Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to never shy away from sharing You with others. We all need a Lord and Savior, and there is no one but You who can save and deliver us. Amen. 

Are You Listening To God?

“I am like the deaf, who cannot hear, like the mute, who cannot speak,” Psalm 38:13 

My mother lives 300 miles from me. We keep in contact and I love her dearly. Occasionally, my mother has issues either with her computer or her television and calls me with questions. Often, she is so busy asking me questions about the problem that she doesn’t take time to listen to what I’m saying. I will say to her: “Mom, you can’t listen if you are talking.” I sometimes wonder if God would say the same thing to us? 

We can get so busy in our lives that we do not take time to listen to God, to read His word, to speak, and then be silent in prayer before Him. We can get so caught up in our problems and the issues in our lives that we fail to hear that still small voice of God whispering in our ears. We need to talk to God in prayer, but we also need to listen. 

When my thorn in the flesh is hurting me particularly bad, and pain and misery is filling up my life, I can become deaf to anything God might be trying to tell me. I can also blind to anything He might be trying to show me.  

Hearing God in the midst of the storms of our lives can be a challenge. We can get so focused on the wind and the waves of affliction that it absorbs all of our attention. Peeling our eyes and ears off of the storm around us can be difficult, but we must if we are to find our way through the storms of life. 

Forcing ourselves into stillness and silence before God may be the action required to bring about the resolution of our situation. Seeking to look beyond the storm and listening past the noise of our trials and tribulations may be the recipe for the solution to our troubles. 

Maybe you are faced with a particularly challenging time right now. Perhaps certain issues in your life have stolen away your attention so that you are having difficulty focusing upon anything but your problems and challenges. I would encourage you to stop. Take a breath. Silence your thoughts. Then look up and ask God for the answers to your perplexing problems. He may not give you an audible answer, but if you will listen and pay attention, perhaps He will show you a way forward through your problems. 

Prayer: Dear Lord, sometimes the noise of our problems drowns out Your voice of guidance in our storms. Help us to be still, be silent, and listen for Your guiding voice. Amen.

Living With Regret

Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— 2 Corinthians 7:8 

  

  To be human is to have regrets. If someone were to ask you if you have any regrets there are likely several episodes in your life that would come to mind. 

  We would all like to have “do overs”. We wish we could turn back the clock and get a chance to do many things over again. It can be hard to let go of past mistakes and this leaves us with regrets. 

  Being human, having weaknesses, and prone to faults, we must allow room for the faults and weaknesses of others. If regrets do us any good at all, they remind us of our shortcomings which can make us more patient with others when they wrong us, or wrong those we love and care about. 

  Life gives us ample opportunity to fail in many ways. Humility enables us to put our failings into perspective, and to add perspective to the shortcomings of those around us. 

  When I think back about the things I wish I had said, or more importantly, wish I had not said. When I add up careless acts, or thoughtless inaction, I can become discouraged about how far I have to go as a child of God.  

  Perhaps the best thing we can do besides giving our regrets to God is focusing upon the path before us and making sure our regrets are fewer and further apart. Let’s start adding up our successes, and shrinking our regrets as we grow wiser and more discerning with time. 

  Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to let go of our regrets, and do our best to avoid adding more regrets to the list. Thank You Jesus for forgiving us, and helping us to be wiser and more patient when it comes to our failings and those of others. Amen.