Salted With Fire

"For everyone will be salted with fire." Mark 9:49, NASB

Jesus continues in verse 50 " Salt is good: but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again?  Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."

Salt.  A preservative and a flavor enhancer.

​These verses have been in my forethought lately.  Words ruminating in my mind; specifically the word "everyone". 

For EVERYONE will be salted with fire.  It doesn't matter if you're a Christian or not, you will be tested with fire and it will produce salt in your life.  The key is Who do you turn to while in the fire?

As my mind swims in this verse I think back to Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.  3 men kidnapped from their homes and forced to live another world.  A world where their beliefs were made fun of, their God ridiculed and everything was thrown at them to get them to conform.  They were even forced to change their names to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

​Yet they stood firm in their belief in God.  One would think being kidnapped and forced into a different life would be their testimony; their salt with fire.  It wasn't.

Refusing to bow and worship the king of the land, they were thrown into the fire.  Literally.  A fire burning so hot those stoking the fire died from it's exposure.

Stop and think about what Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thinking at that moment standing outside the fire.  Their life was over.  They were about to be thrown into a fire that killed those near it.  There would be no escaping this.  How would you feel standing there?

Maybe they still thought God would save them.  That single thought giving immense power to a small flicker of hope.  But then they are thrown into the fire and they find themselves air born and falling. 

They knew it was over.

Until it wasn't.

Jesus showed up.

When the despair had taken all the hope - as they stood IN the fire - Jesus showed up.  In the midst of the flames, Jesus was there with them.  Did they look around at the flames with faith?  Did they become fearful like Peter did when walking on the stormy water? 

I don't know.  But what I do know is Jesus didn't put out the fire.  He stood in it.

As the king knew 3 men were thrown in the fire and now could see 4 men walking around, he called them to come out of the fire.  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out.

Jesus did not.

You see, the men had been salted with fire and it was their story to share.  Jesus left it to them to tell others how He showed up in their most desperate moment.

Most of us won't find ourselves in a literal fire.  But pain and trials and testing may lay a fire to us unlike one we've ever known.  For everyone will be salted with fire.  Everyone. 

So when you feel those hot flames licking at your soul, look around.  You'll find Jesus standing in the flames with you.

The Upside Down & Stranger Things

My lungs are burning.  I'm running fast.  Every running coach will tell you one can out run the pain.  I'm hoping they don't mean just physical.

The memory of today finds me staring at The Upside Down.  I'm trying to outrun it.  I don't want to go back. 


Four years ago today, my siblings and our families found ourselves in The Upside Down.  In a single instant our world turned upside down, the single worst day of our lives.  The thing about The Upside Down is sometimes you walk into it.  A decision you make, a choice you choose and you walk into The Upside Down.  Other times, you hear the hurricane siren and you can brace yourself before The Upside Down comes.

Not us.

We were picked up and heaved in.  We fell hard, hitting ourselves on the rocks of that long shaft into The Upside Down.  At the bottom, we lay broken, bruised, bleeding.   We clung tight to each other and tighter to God.  We navigated together in The Upside Down.   

In The Upside Down you can see from where you fell.   It's Christmas Eve and everyone is happy and singing and sipping hot cocoa.  All appears to be merry and bright.  The Upside Down is dark.  You question if you'll ever get out.  Or if your Christmas will ever have singing again.

As we tended to each other's wounds, stranger things began to happen.  The healing came.  We spent fewer days in The Upside Down.  God held us together and together we lifted each other out.

It's not to say there won't be days we tumble back into The Upside Down.  Like today.  I ran hard to avoid it. 

Looking back I remind myself of the people who surrounded us, walked alongside us, loved on us.  I remind myself the wounds and brokenness heal.  It leaves scars, but healing does come. 

You see, the scars don't heal.
Scars are the healing.

And if there is one thing I've learned about The Upside Down it is this - the beacon out of The Upside Down are the scars of those who have navigated out of it before you.  

You will heal.
You will have scars.
The Upside Down will become upside right.

If you are in need of a beacon, I've got some scars I can show you.

The Passing Storm

Stepping out my sliding door, I hear the eagles chatter.  One perches itself atop my neighbor's tree, the other I can not see.  They are hunting, working together to circle their prey. 

The air is brisk, the sky blue; all a stark contrast to yesterday.  As I run through my neighborhood, I see the damage left by the storm.  It's power was terrifying; homes and properties were destroyed.

A massive evergreen tree lost a 20 ft branch and it hung precariously on a wire overhead.  I pray the wire doesn't snap as I run by.  The road is peppered with smaller branches.  I watch each step I take. 

The rising sun whispers through the morning mist rising off the field.  The mighty oak, which once stood regal in the field, was broken.  The storm had proven too much and snapped a large section which now lay on the ground.  I stop.  I notice the irony.

The delicate grasses are unscathed.
The mighty oak lay broken.
They both weathered the same storm.

Had you asked before the storm had hit, I would have bet the delicate grasses would snap in the 60 mph winds, not the mighty oak.  

My contemplation turns to people.  The expectation of the strong to be stronger.  Life's storms seem to leave no mark, when quietly they weather to a breaking point. No one expects the strong to lay broken or the delicate to stand strong. Yet they do.

Uncertain of how, I feel it all ties in to our sermon last weekend.  Grace.  Grace upon grace.  In the season where it's easy to get caught up in everything but the important, grace can make the difference.  The strong who don't appear to need it yet in truth, may need it most.

May we offer grace to the weathered.  The mighty oak or the delicate grass, we all face the storm.