Salt
When I was a kid, Mom and Dad yearly bought a half side of beef and had a big freezer in the basement from which the four of us would eat from for most of a year. To add to this, we lived in the country so Dad bought the half beef from one of our neighbors who raised cows on grain (to this day, I chuckle when I hear grass grown beef because I know that grain raised beef has more flavor).
This means we had lots of hamburger helper type casseroles. But it also means we’d get a few roasts and the occasional steak. Dad would have the beef processed to yield 1” thick T-bone steaks. Man, just remembering them is making my mouth water.
Now, my mom liked salt on her food. Because of that, my sister and I started salting our food also. And when I say “salt our food,” I mean salt to the point that most people would make comments about ruining the food.
One more pertinent piece of info was that my dad was a big guy and even though, economically, we were middle class, we were lower-middle class. This means that Dad looked forward to finishing whatever my sister and I could not finish to supplement his otherwise meager portion (instead of filler food like a slice of bread with butter). So, on the festive day when T-bones where served, three of us salted, some may say heavily, our steaks. My Dad finished his T-bone and waited for my sister or myself to declare ourselves full. My sister did and my Dad took her leftover steak to finish. I swear there was a tear in his eye as he took that first bite of my sisters steak and realized that she had made it way too salty for normal mortals.
“Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” - Luke 14:34-35 ESV
Salt, like everything else, is marvelous but only in certain proportions. Too little or salt that has lost its taste, or too much (if there is such a thing) is useless at best and repulsive at worst. But I want to end this devotion by switching gears and reflecting on the passage just before this.
“Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” - Luke 14:25-33
It doesn’t matter whether you are building a new building or starting a new project or almost anything else, spending some time to think it through and plan it is valuable. So it is with examining your faith walk. That is what I believe our savior was telling us in this parable.
I extol you to spend a little of your quiet time every day evaluating where you are in your faith walk and asking God for help in those areas you find you are deficient.
