I grew up reading and memorizing verses from the Bible. Way before I even really became a Christian, my parents always took us to church and we learned the “Christian basics” at Sunday School. There was John 3:16, Psalm 23, Galatians 5:22 and 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, as well as many others. I knew the words by heart, but at the time I didn’t really understand them completely nor was I able to apply them in my life. 

After coming to Christ, I chose one particular verse as my singular daily mantra.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

-Philippians 4:13

It was by this verse that I quit smoking, quit eating red meat, quit dating (and other bad habits, haha). I repeated this verse every time I was overwhelmed by my work load. Whenever I felt any task was too daunting or scary, I kept going back to that one verse. 

However, I feel that God wanted me to change gears upon moving to Dubai. During Holy Week at Prayer Mountain back in Cebu, I was led to Matthew 5:1-16. This is a part of Jesus’ master speech, the Sermon on the Mount. I didn’t realize at the time that I had just found my new mantra.

What struck me in particular was the part about being the “salt and light” of the world. 

Salt and light. 

Flavor and illumination.

Preservation and vision.

I took it just as a general reminder to be more of a positive person, especially since I was leaving for a new place.

After I arrived in Dubai, I kept hearing the same thing from everyone: “Dubai is a place full of horrible people.” They warned me that I need to be tough, to be ready to fight and have my claws out.

So I went back to my original mantra. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

But wait! For some reason, instead of my old motto bringing me comfort as it usually does, I felt like this was not the main attitude that God wanted me to bring here.

Instead, He led me back to “Salt and light”. 

In other words, yes, this place is full of people who are not kind. People who are not helpful. People who will do and say hurtful things. But if you are salt and light, you will not be one of those people. 

What a hard thing to do! If you know me well, you probably know how long I’ve struggled with controlling my temper. So for the past 3 or 4 weeks, whenever I encounter any of those people and I feel like reacting, I just repeat the words “salt and light” in my head and it becomes easier. Of course, I’m still human and I still vent out my frustrations. I’m trying to stop having knee-jerk defensive reactions to those things but it’s so hard.

Then, something truly amazing happened last Friday, which was the first time I attended church here in Dubai. Kristine had just told me about a church called Fellowship of the Emirates. It wasn’t on my short-list of churches to try (a list I’d started making since I was still planning to move here) but for some reason, it was the one I decided to try first. 

They gave us handouts before the service began (which contained notes on the message for the day). Imagine how shocked I was when, out of all the tens of thousands of verses in the Bible, guess what the sermon was about? That’s right. 

SALT AND LIGHT!

The people sitting next to me must have thought I was crazy because I just started crying and the sermon hadn’t even started yet. I was just so overwhelmed by such a great reminder that our Father is truly speaking to us through His living word. I felt so unworthy. 

But basically, the pastor enumerated the definitions of what the phrase means.

Salt

  • makes everything taste better
  • a preservative that prevents decay and spoilage. It is life-giving

Light

  • Direction – I know the way
  • Comfort – I am not alone
  • Vision – I can see things I didn’t see

It made me want to live a life that says all of those things. 

Before I left Cebu, we had just started a series called “Hearing the Voice of God." 

I just have to say in response – to paraphrase 1 Samuel 3:10 – "OK, Lord…you’ve got my attention. I’m listening.”