Salt spread through a cake or casserole or any kind of dish enhances the flavour, lifts it, deepens it, helps it achieve what it otherwise couldn't. Think of the king's daughter in the fairy tale. When the old man asks each of his three daughters to proclaim how much she loves him the older two are extravagant in their imagery. The youngest simply says, "I love you as fresh meat loves salt." The king casts her out, disappointed in her seemingly stingy feelings for him. Later she gets a job in his kitchen where she asks the cook to cook the meat without salt. Only after eating the tasteless meal does the king realise how truly his youngest child loves him and what a difference the humble condiment can make.
There have been occasions when I wasn't as thorough in stirring the salt into my pancake mix as I should have been. It didn't make the pancakes taste better as my family will vouch, but on the times I forgot to put salt in at all there was a dullness, something missing.
We can't do what salt should if we spend all our time in a huddle with other believers. It might feel more comfortable but unless it's properly mixed in, salt does not make anything better. We need to spread out, to be stirred into society to help others become what they could be, to carry the amazing, life-enhancing, eternity-saving characteristics of Jesus into the mix of confusion, darkness and hopelessness which makes up so much of this world.
You can't always spot salt in a dish like you can see carrots or rice but you certainly notice its absence. Be the Jesus-salt at your work, in your book/walking club, at the school parents' meeting, in your class. Salt makes a difference but doesn't stand out: you don't need to do something ostentatious to change lives.
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