Month: February 2022

Out of the Salt Box (into the shaker)

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Life feeling turned upside down lately?

You may be moving from the salt box into the salt shaker.

You know maybe you have already been being salt in a situation. And for the most part pretty satisfied with your salty self there. Then the most uncomfortable thing happens. Your time there is finished. Completed. Nothing left for you to do there. How bewildering and perhaps even painful this sudden loss of place or position and seeming meaning to your life and purpose.

Maybe some of you like engaging CHANGE in life. Me? No not so much. Give me stability with a bit of challenge mixed in but major change is not something I hunt for as part of my life pattern.

Consider something though. Salt goes through changes to get to the place of being useable. It has to be mined from underground deposits or from salt water deposits then processed to clean and separate it from other things we wouldn’t want to eat…In part of the refining it is set to dry in the sun letting the water evaporate…maybe you don’t feel turned upside down you just feel unclean and clumpy or left to dry out. But you are of great value, oh salty one and are in process to increase your value.

Then you get put in a place that seems set away and dark. You are clean. You are ready for purposeful things but you are in a round box up on a shelf. You are being salt but not to full potential yet. And then suddenly you move or your world moves and you are poured into something small and very possibly transparent, and set a bit further into the light but to be used. To be turned upside down when needed. To season. To preserve. To cleanse. To heal. You are shaken. And it is for a purpose and a plan in the Master’s hand.

You may think, I am just a mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, kid, student, store clerk, laborer, or whatever upscale or low scale thing you may think of yourself and occupation. But whatever shaker God has placed you in, YOU ARE SALT. What if you feel life is too much of the same old, same old for now in those places? You may very well be a steady seasoning or preservation right there where you are. And if you feel a bit shaken by life these days realize you are found useful for yet another purpose by God. Be glad. Really. Being poured out can be a good thing!

Matthew 5:13 You are the salt of the earth but if the salt has lost its saltiness how shall it be made salty again?

What’s In Your Tank (fill it up)

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Some mornings I wake up with the “Drearies” hanging in my head. They shroud everything. Make it hard to meet the day. That’s clue to me…                                                                                                                  My tank is on empty.

Should have stopped and filled the tank last night after work  because this morning it’s going to be fumes getting me where I need to go kind of thing. And precious little time to stop and fill up on the way. Scripture tells me to keep on being filled with the Spirit. To build myself up in my most holy faith. To take a day of rest. To come apart for a while before I come apart. Before I unravel at the seams from the inside out…

In our day we call it Self Care. In the travel world the flight attendant tells us to get the oxygen mask on first then help others. Wait a minute though, how does that “me first” fit with laying down my life, with being the servant, losing my life to find it and so on? Sometimes we see scripture seeming to contradict itself…I see it though, as the pedals on a bike…not Either/Or but rather Both/And…needed to move the bike forward. And riding takes some practice with balance until balance becomes natural.

Admittedly we sometimes pull away to refuel with things that do not give us a true filling. Absolutely vacation days, hobbies, a new hair style are self care and are legit. But we neglect the pulling apart to pray in the Spirit. This can be through out our day  inwardly acknowledging  and whispering the Spirits prayer from our hearts in our busy days. It can also be separating a time to sit with God bathing in the water of His Word. Not because I HAVE to as a RULE but because I GET to and it settles the storms in me, fills the emptiness in me. It can be those times getting together at church or small groups.

So many of us wear the Badge of Busy-ness. We work as though our salvation depends upon it and was not bought for us by Jesus as a gift not a reward. I am not trying to make one more rule for my life or yours, but simply trying to line up with the Owners Manual for my life so I run better and longer. So I will walk this life in a way to finish well.  See you at the filling station.