Category: fourth quarter faith

living your life full on

Goals for the New Year: Get Salty

“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 underfoot.”

At this point, you might be wondering about the encouragement in that verse. We are the salt, the flavor, the preservative that keeps things from spoiling, the spice that makes all taste better, when we are doing what Jesus called us to do. I love salt, probably more than anyone my age should, but I love it. The only thing that even comes close for taste value in my book is basil but I can’t imagine going to Maine and getting basil water taffy. Doesn’t really work the same, does it?

The scary part about that verse is the idea of losing our saltiness. That makes salt worthless. It can do thing for which it was intended, it brings no joy, it’s just worthless as dirt.

If you have been around a while you probably feel like you are not too salty. Life wears you down. Hurts dilute your sense of being. Injustice, upon injustice followed often by transparent, avoidable stupidity makes cynics of the best of us. You feel more bland or perhaps a bit peppery, but salty is not your overall sense of being. Life can feel like a very long episode of “Spiritual Survivor” where you just want to get to the end without getting voted out of the tribe. (Yes, theologically minded friends, I know that is not possible.) However, I have often felt the last years have been like some kind of extended hazing exercise and it has not done wonders for me. On the contrary, it’s made me less salty.

Today as I read this verse I found myself using Google for something other than flights and maps, my primary uses. I checked to see if salt can be made salty again. What I learned encourages us all. Yes, indeed, salt can regain its original flavor. In fact, salt never changes in it’s composition. It can be diluted, polluted, and hence rendered tasteless but it can also be purified, cleaned out and be every bit as effective as it once was. That process, of getting out the junk that perhaps through no fault of your own, got dumped in your salt pile, or that which diluted what was once an amazing taste, can indeed be removed, and all that was lost, restored. That is the gospel we believe, and no matter how downtrodden you have been, you remain salt. The question that remains is do you desire to be salty again?

We need not do self-repair. We are actually the people who don’t really believe in self-repair. We believe in God repair so we can ask for and be assured that He can and will, restore us in the coming year. So my friends, let’s get salty!

It’s the Fourth Quarter: Not Half-Time (part one)

While this blog began for those in Bible College wrestling with things Bible College will not discuss, it has evolved as the original cast of readers are now pastors or church leaders themselves and dealing with older people in their congregations.  I am an older person, so even if you are not, pay attention because this is a real struggle for aging believers.

Yogi Berra, the baseball legend, was famous for the phrase, “It ain’t over till it’s over”.

Yogi was right.  I am staring down 70 and my body has probably already crested that exalted number as the years have not been kind.  Once you hit 60, you can deny it, but you are in the fourth quarter of life.  There’s no tie. Mortal life just ends.

You cannot do the fourth quarter of life like you are about to sit down and enjoy half-time. There is no time to slack off or sit back or redefine the story of your life.  The life you lived is the life you lived. We are adults. We need to act like it.

So, I address the Jesus believing community here:

Absolutely no one got this far in life without major, serious, traumatic, incidents. If you have, please DM me so I can get your autograph. Illness, death, divorce, accidents, kids or grandkids in trouble, kids or grandkids with disabilities, financial losses, and on goes the list. You have faced huge challenges. The desire to record your hurts or curl up in a ball to prevent more is understandable. The desire to spend your time in recreation and relaxation after a lifetime of office stress is understandable. It is simply not a biblical option. Do you really want to meet Jesus and say, “I spent the last part of my life hitting a small ball into a hole because it made me feel safe. I mean really, it was the younger generation’s responsibility to follow You.”  (No offense to golfers, the same can be said of quilting, video binging, or a host of other things. As relaxation, they are fine, as our main focus, they are deadly.)

However, you are living in the end days. Your end days and the end days of all your peers. If you are over 60, they will begin dropping like flies and it only increases every year. People have one lifetime to hear. Your job is to be sure they do know this great truth: “There is no other Name given under heaven by which we can be saved” (Acts 4:12). A lot of our age-mates are disappointed with what life has offered. Life is not kind. Jesus is. Give them Hope, that will prove true, while we still have time.