Note Card: Pass the Salt, Please

Written on a 4x6 note card by Stan Julin.

March, 1995
We need to be ready to think that which is true, to open our eyes and clarify our thoughts....We memorize certain verses.  We study certain subjects.  We are influenced by certain books.  We are bent in a certain direction by too few minds - the pastor.  We stay in the New Testament.  (You know, the generic, collective, safety-in-numbers "we".)  But the more we focus on a few things, the more we are bound by those things. 

Break out of the mold, the rut!  Don't be such a nice (glazey eyed, bland, stunted) Christian.  Dare to think.  Make connections between things.  You don't see the picture 'til you connect the dots.  Those very few things you concentrated on have kept you from growing because you thought that was it.  Maybe those verses you memorized distorted the other ones you did not memorize.  Maybe in not being conformed to the world you became conformed to the church.  Where are you then?  Pass the salt, please!  If you absorb what the pastor says on Sunday and spend the rest of the week absorbing trivia (pagan or Christian), that makes you trite.  If you think reading a few books makes you sufficient without deep thought, prayer, and struggle of soul, then I must have made a wrong turn; I have never found it easy.