The Salt Test
A Marine Corps lesson in hydration—and evangelism.
“Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”
Colossians 4:6
In our Sunday school class, this verse was brought up in particular with Paul’s prayer that God would give him a “door of utterance” to speak to others about Christ.
It’s such a powerful metaphor – one that I began to appreciate in a more meaningful way one summer back in my Marine Corps days.
During one memorable week of grueling training in the sweltering swamps of Quantico, VA, we lost a few Marines to sick bay due to dehydration and heat stroke. The Navy corpsman, who was tending to our health at the time, started checking on us more frequently. During one of his visits on a long hot day in the field, he did something I’d not seen before – he began passing out pinches of salt and then asked us how it tasted.
When I asked him about it, he explained that if the salt tasted salty, it meant our bodies had enough sodium and we were good to be drinking water. But, if the salt tasted sweet, it was a sign of sodium deficiency and, in that condition, our bodies couldn’t absorb and retain the water we drank.
If you your salt tasted sweet, his solution was simple: he’d keep giving you pinches of salt until it tasted salty again. Once the salt began tasting salty, it meant you were building up enough sodium to the levels your body needed in order to absorb and hold water. Now that it tasted salty you would be fully aware of how thirsty and dehydrated you were. At this point, all the corpsmen had to do was hand you the water to drink.
I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. It’s helped me better understand the dynamic that might be at play with some people when my speech is seasoned with salt. That some people might not know why, but they find it pleasant, maybe even helpful, or comforting. At some point however, they begin noticing that there is something more to it – that my words are not just kind, but they are pointed. Not just gracious or polite but also revealing about something else: they begin to feel a thirst they didn’t know they had – a thirst for Truth, for righteousness, a thirst for the living water that only Christ has to offer and you my Christian friend, can introduce them to Jesus wo they can.
"Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
John 4:13-14
Even if your speech is seasoned with salt, not everyone will come to this conclusion - spiritually speaking. Some will get mad at you. Some will be offended and blame you for “turning salty,” not realizing that the change they’re sensing isn’t in your tone, but in their condition. To some, the sudden awareness of the need they have will feel more like an irritation than an invitation to drink.
Don’t be offended if they don’t drink, just “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” And introduce them to the Jesus.
In time, thirst has a way of making people remember where the well is.