Being Salt in Today’s Culture (Bot9 #283)

“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."
- Matthew 5:13

Earlier this spring, before the whole baseball world got postponed or cancelled, I shared a devotional thought with the players in our program at the beginning of a practice about salt.

I poured a little salt into everyone's hand and asked them to take a taste. We all know salt as something that enhances the flavor of something else. Any believer's goal should be to enhance the baseball community nationwide and around the world by bringing the Gospel of Jesus to everyone we encounter. Whether that means praying with the other team after a game, connecting with players from other teams to share their faith, or to be as passionate about our faith as we are about the game, we have an opportunity to enhance the game. Earlier that day I had heard something that stuck with me - "We want to be so salty that other people get thirsty." We want them to know the Jesus we know and experience the passion that we do.

But salt has a second function, one more consistent with Christ's day - that of a preservative. I challenged all of the players to preserve the culture we have created through the years and through this school year during team placement and cuts. We were in the middle of the tryout period and the next day represented the last day of the tryout period. Like any program, things can feel fractured at that point. The amazing part of what I experienced is that we didn't experience a fracture, we experienced a deeper bond. As we met with each player individually to share their placement or cut for the spring, all of the players stood outside the rooms to celebrate or mourn with them. It was one of the most amazing acts of culture preservation I had ever seen. They chose to continue as a Brotherhood of believers through the rest of the spring...

Until the virus took over. That was probably the hardest part of this turn of events that I've experienced personally - the bond that we created feels like a distant memory. We're now unsure if we'll ever get to hit the field together. As Jesus says in John 10:10, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." The enemy may have destroyed the season for the time being, but our players have experienced being so salty that they preserved the culture in a difficult time. May each of them seek to do the same for Jesus and His teachings for the rest of their lives!