Legos and Salt

Have you ever thought of yourself as a lego?
The classic toy- is a good image for our relational capacity as human beings.
Legos have only so many options for connections. The longer or wider the lego the more connection options.
We are like legos in that we don’t have unlimited ability to connect directly to an endless amount of people. We all have relational limits. Once a lego’s connection points are filled up- it is filled up. Period.
We can only be in deep relationship to a certain amount of people- after that our time, our energy, our commitment will begin to be tested. Some people have more relational capacity than others- but we all have limits. Some of us are the lego with 4 connection points- and some of us have 24. At some points in our life we may have more time, and thus more relational capacity- at other points- we lose relational capacity.
So how is your lego?
My sincere hope is that your lego is not totally filled with other Christians. Does that sound strange? I believe that as followers of Jesus we should befriend all kinds of people. We should be connected to friends that don’t believe what we believe. We should feel free to live out our beliefs- and discuss them with our friends.
I think a lot of Christians think they are supposed to “lego-up” with other Christians. That forces someone who wants to know more about Christ into a difficult position. You see it can be a hard thing to befriend a Christian- because many of them are too filled up with other Christians to have time for anyone else. When Christians only befriend other Christians we are in a sense saying to people who don’t follow Jesus, “You can come to our church events- but you won’t be our friend.” We would never communicate that message with our words- but we unintentionally communicate it with our actions.
I know Christian friends who have intentionally agreed to spend less time together in order to make time in both their lives to have another non-Christian friend. They have “de-lego’d” one of their major connecting points- in order to befriend someone new. That’s cool.
Jesus challenged us to think of ourselves as salt: Have you ever thought of yourself as salt?
"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? Matthew 5:13
(NIV)
We should think of our life in terms of the lego and salt. We do have limits- but like salt we do have saltiness. What do I mean? Salt flavors and preserves the food it is sprinkled onto. In the same way we are called to be the salt of the earth- being God’s love sprinkled out into the places we go. The lego is limited by its connection points. The salt is can spread out through vast amounts of food- spreading its salty goodness. Salt must be weary not to become unsalty- which means as a follower of Christ as we relate and meet others we must not lose our commitments to Jesus Christ and the Bible. If the salt becomes exactly the same flavor as the food it enters- it is no good to the food. Get it?
So hopefully we each will attempt to have empty lego connections in our life, praying for fun and vibrant friendships with people who don’t know Jesus yet. Believing that we can be something good for their life- just as they can be something good for us.