Salty Conversations

Colossians 4:5-6
Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

The term "Salary" comes from ancient days where salt was so precious that wages were supposedly paid in Salt (from the Latin word salarium, a payment made in salt (sal) or for salt, from salarius meaning pertaining to salt.

It is one of the most significant item talked about throughout the bible and even Jesus points out to his disciples its essential nature. ("Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." Mark 9:50)

Today, I like to revisit one points which the bible talks about of salt : The need for us to be salty conversationalist.

Indeed we all know that life without salt would result in turmoil and every food we take would either be bland or limited in dimension because all we taste is sweet, sour and bitter. Sadly, many of us fail to be the essential salt of the world and all we are to others around us is sweet, sour and bitter.

What are the expectations required of us by Paul when he said our conversations needed to be full of grace and seasoned with salt? Salt's characteristics as a seasoning to food is to enhance the natural taste and complete the flavour and taste. In meats such as chicken wings or steak, it brings out the savoury,juicy taste of the meat. Salt also tends to enhance our perception of other flavors, particularly that of sweetness. When we add salt into freshly cut pineapples, it adds an additional salty, albeit tasty, dimension to the tart, sourish-sweet taste of the fruit.

Paul was instructing us that similiar to the use of salt to enhance food, we need to enhance our normal speech and bring out the added dimensions of Godly grace. It is a command to live in the world and be set apart. Thus instructions like this from Paul were given to aid us in our own christian walk that we will know how to respond to each person that crosses our path.

Why is it therefore that having been told to us that all we say, talk, and converse should be seasoned with the amazing grace of God, yet we still have so much whining and complaining. Especially in the last 3 years where the proliferation of technologies have resulted in so many taking it upon themselves to freely express themselves online with all their angsts and issues. Do I really care that you are being transparent to people and true to yourself? No! Neither did Paul. Paul advises us to "be wise in the way you act toward outsiders". It's not about you bottling up your emotions, but about you electing to be wise in all that you say, simply because that man may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

It just irks me to see many fail to succeed in their lives and live it fully according to the victorious destiny God has in-stored for us. From lousy results, lukewarm relationships, compromised health and a life full of lack, it is often a result of a life that has been compromised and one that has deviated from a christian's spiritual destiny of success in God. The word of God proclaims that plans of God are made to prosper His children, and to give us a future, but only if they live righteous lives! For it is written in 1 Peter 3:12 " For the eyes of the Lord are towards the righteous, and His ears attend to their prayers"!

If today you are one of those who are living a crappy life crippled by you and your never ending issues, I pray you will reflect to see how much of your talk and expressions are about you, your issues and things around you that you simply don't like. The world and every other non-christian is like that also and you are living an undifferentiated life.

I truely believe that however we choose to say in our conversations to those around us, it will eventually also result in us behaving and doing what we say. As we make more conversations with others, may it literally influence everyone to see the God behind your being.

Be wise today, and be opportunistic in all your conversations, writings and speech with all around you. May you learn to talk about the abundent grace that has been freely given to you through the cross. Just as a cook would always ensure that his dishes are always seasoned with salt before it is cooked, may every word that proceeds from you be thoughtfully processed with a fear of God before it is released.

Blessings,
M.

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

God of the All

Luke 12:6
Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God.

I received a daily devotion which quoted this simple sentence of scripture and suddenly it made a lot of sense to me and I pray it will to you too.

I'm sure we don't really see sparrows everyday. but, if we open our eyes wide enough to observe, I'm sure we'll see a few of them around us. They are really tiny birds which would be lost amidst the other birds such as minahs, pigeons and ugly crows. Being so small and tiny, I've always wondered where to go and come from and I've never seen them roosting on trees, simply because I reckoned they are too tiny to observe.

Yet Jesus chosed to use these small, simple birds as examples of God's amazing attention to details. Insignicant as a sparrow, the bible states that God never forgets a single sparrow which he created.

Sometimes in life, we find ourselves consumed with our own circumstances and that's when we need to remember that God is the God of All. For all the big issues in life that we are desperate for God's answers in our lives, we always remember God. But in our everyday lives, it seems that God doesn't seem to be much in the picture.

As I travelled around japan for the past 10 days, I'm amazed at how easily forgotten God can be. Simply because I'm consumed by laziness on days which I don't click online to read my daily bread or even mutter my prayers. It's only on those certain travel situations (like airplane turbulence) that I make my paltry prayers. I know fully well that the Christian walk has nothing to do with having a powerful evangelistic service to remind me of a God's existence or an emotional worship to awaken my slumbering spirit man. Regardless whether I'm alone in Japan or in Singapore there is never a reasonable excuse for wandering away from God because like the sparrow, I'm responsible for finding my own food and protecting my own life.

Yet by the very essence of God as a God of grace, He declares that we are never forgotten even in times of personal unfaithfulness. May we not abuse the grace of God and walk in our own selfish, wanton ways because our eternal lives are valued richly by our creator - more so than the sparrows that He likewise created.

Blessings,
M.

"Awake, O north wind,
And come, wind of the south;
Make my garden breathe out fragrance,
Let its spices be wafted abroad.
May my beloved come into his garden
And eat its choice fruits!" (Song of Solomon 4:16)

Let's go over to the other side

Mark 4:35, 37, 38 & 40
On that day, when evening came, He said to them, "Let us go over to the other side."
And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up.
Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?"
And He said to them, "Why are you afraid? How is it that you have no faith?"

I read Mark 4:35 today and this statament "Let us go over to the other side" jumped at me.

Jesus told it to his disciples after he preached the parable of the sower with the crowds. It's a seemingly simple directional instruction to give, but consider the tempest that occurred thereafter and how the disciples panicked about their impending doom because they chosed to follow Jesus' instructions.

Simple as our life is, it is often loaded with situations like this because like the disciples, we follow our lives direction without much consideration of God's Lordship in our lives.

Evidently, Jesus knew that the tempest would break out and the situation would seem scary. Many interprete the scriptures to say that because Jesus was in full control of the situation he could afford to sleep peacefully amidst the violent rocking of the boat. (If you have been in a sailboat or bumboat and it faces strong winds, you'll have a simplistic idea of how aweful it feels to have greater winds and waves rock the disciple boat)

Viewing the waves breaking over the boat and an imminent sinking of the boat, it may seem normal for the poor disciples to panic because death was imminent. Why then did Jesus rebuke the disciples when they woke him up?

They felt that Jesus had directed them but did not care about their current dire conditions! There was a panicky feeling that the situation was lost and everything was doomed. What's made worst was the fact that they couldn't comprehend why Jesus was still asleep and not doing anything. Thus the desperate situation resulted in the disciples complaining that Jesus was not helping out in their situation. They simply did not recognise the Lordship of Jesus, even though he dwelled in the midst of them!

I believe that we too have many such similiar situations as the disciples where we often lose sight of how God has instructed us to go over to another place and forgot that He would go with us. Then, some sudden tempest of life would strike (i.e physical sickness, emotional failures, life's many little problems, family problems, work stress...etc) and we start looking up at heaven in despair because we feel that "God called us to go this direction but does not care that we live or die!"

I'm not sure if everytime God directs us to "go over to the other side", it would come packaged with a tempest intended to test our faith, but I'm sure that the many times which we face uncertainties of life, it surely tests the mettle of our faith.

When I heard the news of the devestatingly poor "A" level results, my heart truely sank. It felt as if a terribly calamity had struck. Times like this sees the constant echoing questioning of "why? why? and more whys?". Yet, I know better than to querie the perfect plans of God amidst our imperfect lives. It's always simple to say, in the long term, this bump of life would smoothen out and would look more like a mole-hill of yesterday's disappointment instead of the mountain of despair today. But today, having read this passage, I know better now because I see a new revelation of God in the situation. Whenever we are asked by God to go somewhere else with Him, He goes with us!

Crisis may come as we go in the direction God has told us to take, but in the midst of the crisis, Jesus will be there by our side. Our life may be tossed, turned and sinking, but! we will never perish nor panic because He is with us and nothing can overcome us. More so, as we need to recognise that Jesus is with us and as He restfully stays by us, we need to look at His example and accept in faith that if God is not panicking, why should we?

Today, if God asks you to go over to the other side, may your eyes stay focused on the Lord as He goes all the way with you.

Blessings,
M.

"And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold."(Mark 4:20)