Block Head!

John 4:14
14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

So there I was tonight feasting on a sodium-laden wealth of General Tso’s chicken and crab rangoons at the Chinese buffet when I started thinking about salt. What are all of the uses of salt? What are all the different kinds of salt? There’s table salt, Kosher salt, iodized salt, sea salt, and a variety of others. Salt comes in different colors. There are pink salts, grey salts, white salts, and yellow salts. There are different purposes for different salts and different times that each salt is to be used. Salt adds flavor, it cleans and sanitizes, it deters pests, and it kills weeds, but the one thing that I want to focus on about salt is that it creates thirst.

Farmers have been aware of the thirst-creating and health necessities of salt for years. They put salt blocks in their fields for their animals to consume. It’s a way of ensuring that the flock or herd will be healthy and will drink enough water to remain alive! These blocks are set out and the animals come to them. They congregate around this salt block taking turns licking it. They are unable to bite chunks off it, though. These animals would like to take a bite of the block, but too much of a good thing would hurt them. They can just get enough to create a thirst for water. Sometimes these animals aren’t even aware that they need to drink. This salt reminds them of their need for life-sustaining water.

We are told by Christ in Matthew 5:13 that we are the salt of the earth. What is our job then? We are to be the go-to salt blocks. We have been placed here among people who may not even realize that they need water. We are to be like a block, set firm in our faith and grounded in what we believe. We are to attract people to us, not scare them away. We are to allow them to take from us, but we are to withhold what could be damaging to them. We are to create in them a thirst for Jesus Christ, the Living Water. Everything that we do, whether singing songs, selling cars, arresting criminals, or teaching school, is to enhance for others the flavor of life. Everything that we do on this planet is to glorify God and create a thirst in others to taste the Living Water.

I’ve been called a block-head before; never have I considered it a compliment until tonight.