Modern Psalm: Help me to be Your Salt and Light
“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. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-16, NIV)
Hey Pops,
Thank you for always being steady, even when I am not. Even when the world is not. Even when my circumstances are not. You have always been over all, in all, and walking with me through everything.
There was never a day where you weren’t there, holding me together.
There was never a moment when you didn’t know the outcome.
There was never a second where you were taken by surprise.
I am thankful that when I meet a new challenge, I don’t have to worry about where you’ll be, because your track record has always proven your faithfulness and your grace towards me, even when I was the least deserving of it.
Help me to be the best steward and example of your loving-kindness for this world. Help me to be sympathetic to the fear of those lost in darkness, living without your light to guide them. Help me to be quick to listen to them and give me the wisdom to minister to them. Because they are everywhere: people who are being tossed around by the evils of this world and have nothing eternal to cling to. Help me to remember that although I might worry about what tomorrow brings, I live with a daily comfort found in the fact that you never let your people slip through the cracks.
And that’s not something someone who walks in darkness lives with. They live with the vast uncertainty with nothing to reassure them. They don’t have a guarantee that “no weapon formed against me shall prosper,” or a reminder that if you take care of a sparrow, how much more will you take care of me. They live going from darkness to darkness, with no hope.
So help me to be salt and light to the world the way Jesus was. Help me to not be judgmental when I come across someone who needs your comfort just as badly as I do. And help me to not be a modern-day Pharisee, turning my nose up at someone’s sin, when my own is just as glaring. Show me how to be more like Jesus; someone who sees people in their sin and knows how to lovingly show them the way to your truth and comfort.
Help me to be more gentle in sharing your Gospel. There is nothing I could say that could convince, convict, or draw someone else nearer to you, so be with me, Lord, in every word I speak and everything I do. Shine your light through me. Show me how to be the kind of salt and light that reaches people in their fear and shows them to you.
Give me boldness not to hide that light you’ve called me to be. Help me to not shrink away when people question you or criticize your ways. Show me how to share your word in love and defend it with courage. There are so many people who are angry at you Lord, but they don’t see the tricks of the enemy that seeks to trap them in their anger towards you. Use me to set them free from that anger and fear so they can truly see you.
Lord, I have known the depths of your love. I have leaned into your steadfast peace and relied on your goodness to protect me. I am just like anyone– I have concern over inflation, modern politics, current events, and where this world is headed– but I have a faith in you that I cling to and that keeps me from despair. And it’s because I know that kind of peace that I want to be a witness and an example to others so that they might see that there is hope in every season of our lives.
You make all things work together for the good of those that love you and serve you. Use my life as an example to others. Help me to be the lighthouse that shines your Truth to those treading water out in the deep and dark world.
Because you are endlessly good, and you have always been in control. There’s no reason to start thinking otherwise now, and if someone else can be reassured of that because of the way I live in sacrifice to you, then help me to stand strong in your promises to me.
I love you, Lord.
Talk to you soon,
Cortney
