Day #20

DIF Web AdminPrayer & Fasting 2025

Take a moment to imagine you are living in a cold place. It’s autumn and you are getting ready to leave for work on a night like any other autumn night. First, you get yourself bundled up and then you go out to the car, put your lunch inside and fire up the engine so it can begin warming up for you to leave. You go backside for 10 – 15 minutes and then you take off early because you need to pick up a co-worker on your way. You arrive at her house a few minutes after leaving your place and then you are off to work.

You are driving along, chatting, enjoy the evening drive when, BAAAM, a deer leaps onto and over your car. You slam on the breaks and, as you do, you let out a short explicative @(%#@. You’ve missed the deer – thank You, Jesus! Your car is okay and so are you and your co-worker.

You finish your journey to work and when you arrive, your co-worker starts re-telling the story of your heart-pounding drive into work. You are following along as she shares, adding-in embellishments when it’s appropriate. Then, all of a sudden, you realise you are now the story.

The reason your co-worker is re-telling the story isn’t just because you almost hit a deer and had a car crash but because everyone at your workplace knows you are a Christian and your coworker is surprised that you swore.

THEY WERE WATCHING!

This was one of the first times I realised for myself that, as a professed Christian, people will always be watching how I live my life - how we each live ours. I hadn’t tried to hide who I was as a Christ-follower, but, up until that point, I had never realised that when people know Whose you are, they are watching who you are and how you walk through situations in your everyday life. In that moment (and in the days that followed), I got to know about and live out Matthew 5:13 and be Jesus’ salt for this earth. What an eye-opening, revolutionising experience in Christ!

Now, fast-forward several years to Vietnam. Now you’re working in a school with many foreigners and Vietnamese colleagues. And this lesson from so many years ago – you are God’s salt – comes up again…. but this time not in such a favourable way.

You have been working at this school for a couple of years now and it’s that time of year when there’s school-wide event and students from around the city are gathered in your auditorium to take part. You are sitting next to one of your co-workers and you’ve been doing a bit of chatting throughout the event because you have a growing friendship. All of the sudden, she leans over and says of the person who is MC-ing, “That person is a Christian, watch out or he’ll try and convert you.”

You sit stunned. You are a Christian too. How do they not know that? How has this been missed? What do you do in this moment? Do you keep quiet? Your colleague didn’t seem to like the Christian on stage. Do you say something? What does this say about you if those you spend the most time around you don’t know that you’re a Christ-follower, too.

Instead of being Jesus’ salt to the people around you, you’ve somehow been hiding your light under a bush or a bucket. You’ve somehow laid aside that lesson from years ago – that people are always watching – you’ve somehow forgotten that you are to be Jesus’ salt, His light, and you are not supposed to be hiding Whose you are, but shining brightly for Him through who you are just like it says in Matthew 5:14-16.

Today, your challenge is, are you being the saltiness in your community? Are you being that city on a hill shining brightly for all to see?

Scripture Reading

Matthew 5:13-16 [MSG]

Reflection Prompts

Who is your community? Who is Jesus calling you to be His salt and light to?

Now take a moment and pray about it. Do those people know you are different? Can they see that you are different by the way you are living? Do they know you are a Christian?

Continue praying and ask God if there are there any areas or places in your life where you need to shine the light of Jesus brighter or let the way you are living be more salty.