The Salt of the Earth: Becoming Who God Created You to Be

One goal of Faithful Surrender Counseling is to bring together personal faith, The word of God, and personal experience, with particular emphasis on mental health struggles, relationship strain, and how the act of surrender can free us from the burden of turmoil, pain, and suffering.

In pursuit of furthering this, I welcome you to follow my latest blog series wherein I will be discussing the application of God’s word to our lives and how this interacts with common struggles that I see as a therapist.

To those who do not know me, hello. My name is Kaleb Martin, and I am a licensed professional counselor in the state of Pennsylvania. I specialize in couple’s and marriage counseling, and I also work with individuals, specializing in men’s issues. What sets my approach apart from many other therapists, LPCs or Psychologists, is that God’s word is the foundation of my work. This means that I hold His word to be the objective truth given to us to guide our lives.

Many people I talk with struggle to understand the Bible. Here I do not offer a new scholarship nor commentary, but rather I am offering a different perspective, one based in practical application. I do not seek to explain God’s words, nor tell you what “He really means…”. Instead I will take God’s word at face value and share how I have learned to apply this, and how I use it to help others in my professional work.

Matthew 5:13:

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”

God creates with purpose; you, me, and every other person included. This life, full of struggles and challenges, alters the way we see ourselves. It is inevitable. We think of life as if we were a flavorless seasoning with our saltiness and flavor defined over time, shaped by our experiences. Yet, in reality, this is not the full truth. Each of us was created with intense and dynamic flavor; we were shaped, molded, and endowed with purpose from the very moment of our life’s beginning.

The value that each of us strives for was already present; we struggle to attain it because it’s something to realize, not achieve.

A significant other may insist that we become more like sugar, and a place of work shares that your saltiness is not in the best interest of the company; the world around us demands that salt become something that it was never created to be. But to do this, we would be sacrificing and denying much to give them what they ask for. Still we work to change our flavoring so that it may be more palatable for those around us.

What may begin as an earnest desire to build relationships—even at the cost of ourselves—can gradually devolve into a life spent protecting ourselves, proving ourselves, or pursuing gratification instead of God's purpose. Without our identity rooted in God’s purpose and guidance, we inevitably look elsewhere for our foundation: the work we do, the activities we engage in, or the people we surround ourselves with. An identity no longer rooted in objective truth becomes easily reshaped.

Even then, God continues to remind us of both our value and the life He created us to live. His Spirit bears witness to the truth, even when we are tempted by self-gratification, self-denial, and sin. Much of my work involves helping people lay aside the false beliefs, fears, and patterns they've accumulated through years of struggle. When freed of these burdens, they can return to who God created them to be, finding peace and healing in the process.All of us struggle; that's okay—it is part of life. Yet some people, amidst that struggle, begin to work against the truth God has placed within them. They justify harmful behaviors, rationalize greed and injustice, and suppress that truth until they can scarcely hear it anymore. Over time, they become so committed to becoming what the world demands that they no longer recognize the saltiness with which they were created.

This can be seen in the father who neglects his wife and children for addiction; the wife who justifies adultery because she no longer feels valued; the manager who enriches himself at the expense of those beneath him; or in each of us whenever we convince ourselves that resisting God's Spirit is somehow right.

When this is chosen, eventually the truth of who someone was created to be becomes obscured, usurped by the person they chose to be. In time, their salt has lost its savor. This does not have to be the end. There is a pathway back; a way through. Repentance is the act of turning back toward God with sincerity and humility. It means taking responsibility for our actions, seeking forgiveness, and making restitution where we can.

Some would rather cling to the life they have created—even with its tension, heartbreak, daily pain, and broken relationships—because of what they believe it gives them. In such a case, the word is clear: the only thing they have left to do is to be trampled under the feet of others.With most teachings of God’s word, this, too, turns the worldly standards we are used to on its head. Those who have lost their salt are not always what we would consider the deplorable or the ones that society looks down upon. Many are the ones society seems to favor. Nevertheless, these are the ones who are struck down along the path of life and trampled in the cycle they have secured for themselves. Most of us have a way back; our saltiness is not lost. Some, however, become so committed to gaining the world that they willingly abandon the saltiness with which God created them. They have already received their reward.

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