Food. I love it. Too much. I eat a lot. In fact, I consume large amounts of food on a daily basis and now that I am out of my parents house Kendall and I have been discovering the art of cooking for ourselves. While I have been known to do a little cooking in the past by myself, here recently I’ve stepped that process up when I made the decision to not eat out anymore (or at least very little). I’m getting married, got my own house, and money must be conserved for other things other than restaurants and fast food (which is killing me anyway). Besides, I have become convinced that I can make better food than many of the restaurants that I visit, if I just take the time and do the work.

All of that to say this, one of the most important factors in cooking anything is seasoning. How you season your food, the stuff that you use, and how much you put in will greatly effect the taste of the food being cooked. To bite into a mouthwatering, succulent steak that has been perfectly seasoned or to scoop out some smooth garlic mashed potatoes that have just the right amount of garlic or to eat just about anything that has a perfect seasoning sends me into the upper realms of personal pleasure and delight. Did I mention my love for food? On the other hand, if you drop a slab of meat in my plate and plop some kind of slop in a bowl and hand it to me with no seasoning and I bite into a bland, boring pile of food then the experience is quite different. I will chew on it, think about how bad it is, and sometimes I’ll even spit it out and toss it away because it disgusts me. My hunger will not be filled and I’ll be dissatisfied.

I was thinking about this in regards to a verse I read this morning:

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. - Colossians 4:6

In those days salt was used as a preservative to keep food from spoiling and it was used as an additive to give flavor to food. Giving flavor to food makes it appealing and desirable, while less flavor makes it repulsive and forgettable and Paul applies that to our speech. When Christians talk it should be seasoned with salt, it should be appealing and loving and people should feel delightful and good about themselves after talking to you and want to talk to you more because of the way you make them feel and because they experience delight and fulness in your conversations.

I think that it is a tragedy that we would speak in a rude or coarse manner. People who know me might be chuckling to themselves right now in awe that I would say something like that, since there are so many times that I am rude and very coarse. Over the years my speech and how I talk has become rough, it has an edge, and it hurts people. This is a shame, and I am convinced that this is an area of sin in my life that must be cut off. Harsh, rude, hurtful speech is like bland, repulsive food. Nobody wants it, and anyone who has experienced it is not about to try it again unless something has changed about it. To be blunt, judgmental, and to have a forceful, know-it-all attitude does not help anyone and is not a Godly trait to have, but instead as we mature in Christ and build Godly character in our own lives we must let all of our conversation be “seasoned”.