Why Do We Need to be Salt?

I'm going to be doing something this summer I've never done before.  Something that I'm nervous about, but something that I know God is directing me to do...I'm going to lead a Bible study.  I'm going to take the Colossians Bible study that Laura wrote for SOWN and myself and 3 other women are going to dive in and do this 8-week study on a book that I hadn't really paid much attention to. 

I decided to start this venture yesterday by preparing and so I picked up my Bible and proceeded to read the book of Colossians.  What a spectacular book in the Bible!  It's packed with so much wisdom and it took me a while to get through that little book because I kept looking up references and researching things and looking at verses in different translations!  The reason I'm writing this is because, already, God has my heart directed towards a particular passage in Colossians; Colossians 4:5-6.

"5 Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsider, making the most of the opportunity.   6 Let your speech always be seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person."  (NASB)

POWERFUL!  The reason it struck me is because this isn't the first time that salt has been used as a reference.  Look at Matthew 5:13.

"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again?  It is no longer good for any thing, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men." (NASB)

As a Christian, I know the concept of being the "salt of the earth."  But do I really understand and do I really LIVE it?  Salt is a preservative.  It was and is used to preserve meat.  It also flavors.  My job as "salt" is several fold.  I should first be binding myself as a preservative in this lost and dying world.  My job is take my love and example of Jesus and envelop people to help sustain them through good and bad times.  I'm also supposed to "flavor" society; I can live Jesus out loud, His love shining through me. I can paint His brilliance on every canvas I come across.  I can make people hungry for His Word and His peace.

I think, though, that I can also apply this more intimately in the lives of my children.  My job is to help them grow in Christ Jesus.  I'm the preservative that helps protects them from becoming rancid.  I know that ultimately, the choice to follow is theirs, but I still need to be doing my job as salt to fuel that desire to learn more.

As far as my speech being seasoned with salt....I always need help with that.  Especially when it comes to my children.  God continues to work in me about that.  It wasn't long ago that McKenna shared with me that I was different from before, a change that she liked.  She sees the changes that God has brought about and I long for her to see more.  It's a constant prayer of mine that what I say to my girls be palatable; easy to hear, easy to understand, easy to see the love. 

How about you?  How do you see being the "salt of the earth?"