Pass the Salt

Another day started with sadness. My own life was just fine, actually. But it took less than an hour to become aware of yet another group of people for whom today, and many days to come, is a day of mourning. 

Another shooting. States away from me, sure. But in my country, happening to two people just out doing their jobs as news reporters. Another senseless act. More tears. More heads shaking in bewilderment. More eyes lifted up asking God, or just the skies, "Why my loved one??"

This life can have such a bitter taste. Sometimes I get so tired of feeling like the good is just being drowned out by the noise of the bad. I can even lose my joy for living in the now when I stop and think long enough on all the things we have done to mess up this world so terribly. 

After checking out news on the shooting in Virginia today, that claimed the life of a 24 year old female reporter and a 27 year old cameraman, I sat on my couch looking dismally at the floor. Then I sent the following message to my friend in China via WeChat:

"Can you imagine what it'll be like when we're with [God], and we get to like, Day 5 of no bad news, no crying, no fights, no pain, no anger over someone doing something?"

I answered my own question to myself silently for a moment as I awaited his reply. I really couldn't. I really could not imagine for myself what that will feel like to have gone days, then weeks, then months, then YEARS without those things that bring sadness in this life. See, I tend to focus less on the visuals and stuff like whether our pets will be with us in heaven. I meditate more on the way it'll feel to my human soul, to be forever removed from this existence, and instead alongside Jesus in a place of perfection. I want so badly to know what heaven is like, and I want even worse to be there now. Especially when the news is bad. And it so often is. 

Then my friend on WeChat broke the gloom of my despairing thoughts and yearning for what isn't, with this reply:

"Until that time, we must be that taste of what's to come. I believe that's part of what was meant by being salt."

Of course!! I realized I couldn't agree more. This had to at least one nuance of what Jesus meant when he talked about salt. 

For those of you unfamiliar with this, in the book of Matthew Jesus was recorded as saying,

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men" (Matthew 5:13).

Jesus said this during a famous sermon he preached while a large group of people was gathered around him on a mountainside. He'd just talked about how we who believe in him and follow God's ways will be persecuted and unpopular in this world because of it, but that we are meant to stand out, and meant to be different, and we'll be blessed because of it. Here he is telling those who get sick and tired of this world, like I often feel, that we are meant to be a flavoring that changes how life tastes to others. 

Many people don't know God but they long for hope. Even those of us who know God and love him can lose our hopefulness too, while living in the deep shadow of the fallen ways of mankind, in a world that seems like it's growing darker by the day. While on earth, heaven can certainly feel far away. 

But every Christian like me has a mission. We can change this bitter taste into something more flavorful, more savory. 

All it takes is a pinch of salt. 

With every kind act we perform to someone around us, or every seized opportunity to love those in our lives with a kindness and selflessness that Christ exhibited on a daily basis, we give a foretaste of heaven. 

There will be nothing that our hearts or brains can experience or contrive during this lifetime to truly capture the beauty, the relief, and the elation of what heaven will feel like to enjoy. 

But that doesn't mean we need to live as though it's a far off reality that nobody can know of until they get there. The life of a Christian is one that has countless opportunities to add the flavor of good news that, no matter how dark this world is, Jesus overcame the world's darkness, and defeated death and violence and malice and all the other sad headlines. He overcame all that by his death on the cross, and his resurrection to eternal life. He has promised to allow me to inherit all that because he loves me so much. He wants me to pass that deliciously salty flavor to the drab and boring and hopeless plates that sit at everyone else's tables. 

Those of us who follow Jesus will get to taste heaven someday, when our time here is up, because of God's undeserved and incredible love. 

And in the meanwhile, we can share something that's different with everyone else. Something that's new, and fresh. Something that isn't sad, depressing, or painful like so much else in life. Something that's reason for hope and peace because it speaks of never-ending tomorrows in a real paradise that will make us forget this place. Something that drowns out all the noise of the bad with the goosebump-inducing symphony of the good and beautiful - God's love.

We can pass that salt, and let everyone taste heaven now, through us.