When I was in elementary school, my dad made me a necklace. He crafted it with an amber heart as the centerpiece and then surrounded that with amber and hematite beads. I adored it. Everytime I saw it or thought about it, I knew that my daddy loved me, that he treasured me, and that he thought I was worth his effort. It became my most treasured possession. There was nothing that I owned that had more value to me. This necklace that you see in the picture was by far my most valued possession growing up.
When I first began thinking about the 3 characteristics of saltiness, I was excited about the "valuable" quality. I figured I was going to get to find all sorts of verses about how God delights in us, how much He loves us, how He sees us to have tremendous value. It was going to be like one giant self-esteem boost. How fun! However, as I began to really contemplate the concept of being valuable like salt, other considerations came into view. What exactly is it about salt that has made it valuable throughout the ages? To whom has it been seen as valuable? What determines value really? I'm not an economist, but I began to realize that the audience or consumer or owner is somehow undeniably linked to the consideration of an item's value. That amber necklace has been quite valuable to me over the years, but if I took it to a fine jeweler, I doubt he'd consider it to be as valuable as I do. So, the question remains, as salt, to whom do we have value and why?
Let's go back to the original verse again. "You are the salt of the earth." (Matthew 5:13a) I had never considered "of the earth" to have any meaning other than the facts that we were placed on earth and that our saltiness seems to be relative to the other residents of this planet. However, in light of my ponderings on our value, I began to realize that "of the earth" seemed to answer the question "To whom do we have value as salt?" Maybe the earth and its residents are those to whom we should be valuable.
Ok, but why, how? Is this even Biblical beyond this prepositional phrase? What about how God sees our value? He's our Creator. Surely, He has the best perspective on our value. "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10) Clearly, God loves and values us. There are many verses that testify to this. We are indeed His treasured masterpieces, but He made us with a purpose in mind. When He talks about our value as His handiwork, He explains that He made us with this value to do the good works that He has set out before us.
God knows our value, and He does not see us just as some fancy bauble to gaze at. We have value to the people and this planet we reside on through the good works we were designed to do. This is exactly like salt's value actually. Salt doesn't have immense value because people love to just keep it on a shelf and admire it. Salt has value because it is incredibly useful! We show our true value when we do these good works that God has set out before us.
We need to ponder then what sorts of deeds God would classify as "good." "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8) When I consider the various good deeds described and urged in the Bible, they pretty much all fall into these categories. Whatever good deeds God has prepared for you, you'll probably recognize them to fall under a category like acting justly or loving mercy or walking humbly with God.
The specifics of the good works that God has set out before you are specific to your unique design and placement on earth. I could not possibly explore every reader's specific callings in this blog post. However, there seems to be value in looking at these 3 categories of good deeds as well as examples for each category. Before we jump in to doing that though, I need to set it up for you a bit.
The rest of this post will not read like my other blog posts. It is designed more like a table of contents for a cookbook. Do not consider it to be an exhaustive list. If you don't strongly resonate with anything listed below, don't panic. You may not find here the recipe that you were most meant to jump into, but it might get the creative juices flowing. Maybe you weren’t designed to be in the chickpea soup listed below, but hopefully it will remind you of a hummus recipe you’d heard of lately that you meant to get more information on. Your saltiness belongs in some good-deeds-recipe, but I can't list or describe every possible recipe below! Additionally, you may disagree with the category something is in below. It turns out that a lot of recipes can go in to multiple categories. Also, this is not listed hierarchically. I'm not ranking anything above anything else. There are plenty of recipes out there that need salt. The orderliness of the list is trying to help you consider categories of recipes that you might fit into. This allows you to go look at a specific category without having to read the whole list too. The organization is not suggesting any ranking. Finally, the subcategories of "In everyday life," "In your surrounding community," and "To the ends of the earth" reflect what I see as possiblities in the everyday lives around me and in my surrounding community and to the ends of the earth that I know about. Clearly, your placement on this earth would change what would fit under these categories.
Please explore this Table of Contents in your own time, and jump to the end when you're ready for the wrap up of this post.
Cookbook of Good-Deeds-Recipe Ideas Table of Contents
To Act Justly
In Everyday Life
To the Ends of the Earth
To Love Mercy
In Everyday Life
To the Ends of the Earth
To Walk Humbly with Your God
In Everyday Life
God knows our value, and He does not see us just as some fancy bauble to gaze at. We have value to the people and this planet we reside on through the good works we were designed to do. This is exactly like salt's value actually. Salt doesn't have immense value because people love to just keep it on a shelf and admire it. Salt has value because it is incredibly useful! We show our true value when we do these good works that God has set out before us.
We need to ponder then what sorts of deeds God would classify as "good." "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8) When I consider the various good deeds described and urged in the Bible, they pretty much all fall into these categories. Whatever good deeds God has prepared for you, you'll probably recognize them to fall under a category like acting justly or loving mercy or walking humbly with God.
The specifics of the good works that God has set out before you are specific to your unique design and placement on earth. I could not possibly explore every reader's specific callings in this blog post. However, there seems to be value in looking at these 3 categories of good deeds as well as examples for each category. Before we jump in to doing that though, I need to set it up for you a bit.
The rest of this post will not read like my other blog posts. It is designed more like a table of contents for a cookbook. Do not consider it to be an exhaustive list. If you don't strongly resonate with anything listed below, don't panic. You may not find here the recipe that you were most meant to jump into, but it might get the creative juices flowing. Maybe you weren’t designed to be in the chickpea soup listed below, but hopefully it will remind you of a hummus recipe you’d heard of lately that you meant to get more information on. Your saltiness belongs in some good-deeds-recipe, but I can't list or describe every possible recipe below! Additionally, you may disagree with the category something is in below. It turns out that a lot of recipes can go in to multiple categories. Also, this is not listed hierarchically. I'm not ranking anything above anything else. There are plenty of recipes out there that need salt. The orderliness of the list is trying to help you consider categories of recipes that you might fit into. This allows you to go look at a specific category without having to read the whole list too. The organization is not suggesting any ranking. Finally, the subcategories of "In everyday life," "In your surrounding community," and "To the ends of the earth" reflect what I see as possiblities in the everyday lives around me and in my surrounding community and to the ends of the earth that I know about. Clearly, your placement on this earth would change what would fit under these categories.
Please explore this Table of Contents in your own time, and jump to the end when you're ready for the wrap up of this post.
Cookbook of Good-Deeds-Recipe Ideas Table of Contents
To Act Justly
In Everyday Life
- Speaking up for that coworker who constantly seems to be belittled and blamed for everything
- Being a friend to the kid or adult that you know is being bullied
- CASA "Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) for Children is a network of 933 community-based programs that recruit, train and support citizen-volunteers to advocate for the best interests of abused and neglected children in courtrooms and communities." You can be a Volunteer Advocate to "offer judges the critical information they need to ensure that each child’s rights and needs are being attended to while in foster care."
To the Ends of the Earth
- International Justice Mission IJM works to rescue slaves, free those wrongly imprisoned and oppressed, provide justice for the impoverished around the world, and more. They are successfully doing this amazing work, and they describe many different ways that you can come alongside them to contribute to their work.
- 60 Feet In Uganda exists remand centers where hundreds of children are imprisoned together without anyone to advocate for their rights or needs. I have visited a remand center like this, and on the day I visited, there were over 400 children imprisoned at one remand center, and only 7 of them had ever been convicted of any crime. 60 Feet is working to provide for both the immediate and long-term needs of children like these. I was really struck by their long term dream that includes "a village for children where Ugandans take the lead in rebuilding a family-like structure…where physical, emotional, and spiritual needs are provided for." Their website describes some truly unique ways you can give to the cause of these imprisoned children.
To Love Mercy
In Everyday Life
- Mowing the lawn for those sleep-deprived neighbors with an infant and a toddler who never seem to have their yardwork done
- Transporting children for a single mom who has trouble juggling work demands and her children's schedules
- Taking a meal to someone that needs one
- Open Table You can support that refugee mother in your community who is struggling to make ends meet for her and her children while also trying to save money to bring more of her family over. You can be family for that teenager who just aged out of foster care and has no idea how to find housing, transportation, and employment all at the same time. You can commit to walking alongside people like this in your community for a season to help them get their footing and to know that they have a support net of people who care about them. Being a part of this is a truly transformational experience for everyone involved.
- Safe Families for Children Safe Families for Children is a national organization that, as my own church's website states, works "to provide a sanctuary to the children in our own community when problems such as drug addiction, domestic abuse, incarceration, or illness make it impossible for their parents to care for them. The ultimate goal is to strengthen and support parents so they can become Safe Families for their own children. Safe Family volunteers provide support by becoming either a Host Family, hosting children in their home for a brief time or a Family Friend, providing support to Host Families through donations, babysitting, transportation, etc."
To the Ends of the Earth
- Africa Family Rescue AFR "is a non-profit faith based organization designed to restore hope and dignity to families, communities and churches affected by extreme poverty in Africa." I am blessed to know the remarkable family that began this organization, so I know that the help they offer goes to families like the impoverished widow who has no way to provide for herself or the children in her care, or the mother who is so impoverished that she is unable to redeem her own child who was unjustly taken away from her and placed in an orphanage. The website offers multiple ways you can support their work with families, churches, and entire communities.
- You can sponsor a child in need through many organizations, but I'm linking to the following opportunities to sponsor a child. One opportunity here is for sponsoring a child in the Casa Hogar Elim orphanage located in a border town in Mexico. They need the support to continue operating and providing love and hope for the children in its care. The other opportunity is to support children in Uganda who have been rescued from the remand center that I mentioned above and who now need support to have continued access to basic needs and education through their new home at the Homecoming through Foodstep.
To Walk Humbly with Your God
In Everyday Life
- Seeking out that really grouch/socially awkward/strongly-accented coworker and initiating a conversation with him/her every day at work
- Spending time to really study the Word of God each day and intentionally praying for yourself and others and for God's will to be done
- Pursuing the call to homeschool even though you thought you were finally going to be able to go back to your career after years of staying at home with the children
- Accepting the loving and caring efforts of your Father as His people serve you
- Serving in kid's ministry at church. It can require some serious humility to volunteer in the rooms that require changing diapers, working with kids that are no longer cute but are also not the best conversationalists yet, or investing in the teens who act like they already know everything!
- Habitat for Humanity You could give up some of your weekend time and effort to help construct a home for a family in need.
- Casa Hogar Elim You could set aside the time on a weekend, or even many weekends, to visit and form relationships with the children at this orphanage in Mexico.
- Serving His Children You may feel called to be a long-term volunteer through this amazing place in Uganda that works to end the cycle of malnutrition through inpatient rehabilitation, outpatient early intervention clinics, and community health & nutrition classes.
- Before an international business trip, you could take the time to really learn as much as possible about the culture of the area you'll be traveling to so that you can display true respect and courtesy to everyone you meet
We talked in this post about how our value as believers is, like salt, wrapped up in our usefulness. However, I want to caution you against thinking that you are worth more or less than someone else based on the recipe(s) in which you find yourself. We need to focus on what recipes we were designed for, not comparing our recipe to everyone else's. Let's ALL walk humbly with our God even as we love mercy and act justly. We all have specific good deeds for which we were perfectly designed and placed. Don't discount your value or the value of someone near you. You can't see the whole feast from where you sit!
I realized as I thought through different ideas for the above "Cookbook" reference that our value to the earth has more in common with my amber necklace than I had ever before considered. Regardless of the recipe you were made for, we all have the opportunity to show others that their heavenly Daddy loves them deeply, that He treasures them immensely, and that He thinks they are worth His and our full efforts. We can become someone's treasured, tangible example of their Father's deepest love for them. What greater value could we have?
In the next and last post, we'll look at the end of Matthew 5:13 and consider what it would mean to lose our saltiness. For now though, if you have any favorite good-deeds-recipe ideas, share them here! Put them in the comments for all to see. It may be someone else's perfect new recipe to jump into!
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