The second clue in the quest to find the lost recipe for candy-flavored pop is to find salt to fill an empty salt shaker that Leapfrog and Toenail had found in the lighthouse. Obviously, the first thing they needed to do was to comb their hair, so they made combs out of the bent and broken paperclips that were left over from their adventures at the lighthouse. After they made the combs, they spent one hour combing their hair with great joy and enthusiasm!
They had to find salt to fill the salt shaker. Leapfrog suggested that they go to the store and buy some salt, but Toenail pointed out that all the superheroes in the world were watching them for inspiration, and they needed to do everything in an impressive way! So, Leapfrog came up with another one of his ideas. He said, “Let’s hide on a boat, it will eventually leave Lake Superior, go through the other Great Lakes, up the St. Lawrence seaway, and into the ocean. The ocean has a lot of salt in it!” Toenail agreed that this was a great idea, and that it would inspire super-heroes throughout the entire world because of the cleverness of the plan and the great danger they would face along the way.
Leapfrog and Toenail left the lighthouse and began walking along the shore of the lake (Actually, Toenail walked, and Leapfrog rolled on the rollerblades). They were looking for a boat that was headed for the ocean. While they were walking, someone drove by in a car and threw a big bag out of the car’s window. The bag landed with a splash in the lake just a little in front of Leapfrog and Hangnail. Of course, they had to know what was in that bag, so they ran into the lake and rescued the bag before it got washed away. The bag was already filled with water that poured out when they picked up the bag. They looked inside the bag and found that the bag was filled with french fries! Of course, the french fries were soggy now, but Leapfrog and Toenail were jumping for joy because now they had food to eat on their boat trip to the ocean! After traveling for about 2 miles (and falling 47 times!) they finally found a pier with a boat tied up to it. It was a small boat, but there were people loading supplies into it for a journey.
They needed to sneak onto the boat when no one was looking, so Toenail decided to create a diversion so that Leapfrog could sneak onto the boat. Toenail went down the shore a little way, climbed up on a big rock, and began jumping up and down, waving and yelling “hi” to the people by the boat. All the people by the boat looked at Toenail and began to wave to him. Leapfrog went right behind the people and snuck onto the boat. Toenail was having too much fun jumping up and down on that rock! He jumped too high, lost his balance, fell on the rock, and bounced down the side of that rock! The problem was that Toenail had put his comb (made of bent and broken paperclips) into his back pocket, and every time he bounced the comb poked him! The pain was awful; it felt like 100 killer ants chewing on chocolate pudding! He began yelling as loud as he could, he ran around in circles, he pulled his hair, and he did 17 cartwheels! The people by the boat began to laugh so hard that they were rolling on the ground helplessly. While they were laughing, Toenail walked right onto the boat without being noticed! Leapfrog and Toenail hid behind some boxes, and no one saw them! After about an hour they felt the boat bumping a little bit and they got all excited because they thought they were on their way to the ocean!
If they could have seen what was really happening, they would have been simply amazed! The boat was not traveling across the Great Lakes; it was now on a boat trailer being pulled by a truck! They were not going east toward the ocean but going west! Their plans were going hopelessly wrong, and they did not even know it! The boat traveled for two days with Leapfrog and Toenail hidden inside. It was terribly boring, but they spent the time eating some of those French fries! They had a contest to see who could take the most bites out of one French fry! Toenail won the contest by taking 106 bites to eat just 1 French fry, but they ate so slow that by the end of 2 days they had each only eaten 14 French fries! Those French fries tasted awful! They were soggy, and did not seem to have much taste or flavor! When they felt the boat stop moving, they knew that it was time to get off and get salt out of the ocean, but they wanted to get off the boat in a very exciting way. So, they decided that they would run out of the boat’s doorway as fast as they could and jump right into the ocean and swim away before anyone saw them. It seemed like a great plan! On the count of three, they ran out of the boat as fast as they could go, jumped as far as they could, and started swimming while they were still in the air! They were swimming so hard and so fast that they were simply amazed at themselves, they just knew that they should be in the next Olympics! After 10 minutes of record-breaking swimming, they noticed something unusual, they weren’t even wet! Then they noticed that they were not swimming in the ocean, they were not even in water, and in fact there was no water in sight! They were on dry ground beside the boat trailer, and a bunch of kids were standing there pointing at them and laughing! Nobody should laugh at Super-Heroes! Leapfrog and Toenail stood up with dignity, but promptly fell over because their legs were so tired from swimming! As they were laying there on the ground, the kids noticed the bright green tennis shoes with super-strong tread that Toenail was wearing. The kids wanted those shoes, so the kids made a trade with Leapfrog and Toenail. The kids got the shoes, and Leapfrog and Toenail got 2 slightly used tricycles, painted bright green with red stripes!
So, there they were at the edge of the road with 2 tricycles and a bag that still had quite a few soggy French fries in it. Leapfrog still was wearing the rollerblades, but Toenail only had socks on his feet (and they didn’t smell too good!). They noticed that right beside them was a huge mountain. Leapfrog had an idea, he said, “The ocean is probably right on the other side of this mountain.” So, they began to ride the tricycles up the mountain. The tricycles were way too small for them, but they did not let that bother them, they charged up that mountain at the incredible speed of 1 mph!
Four days later they finally got to the top of that mountain! Right in front of them the road went almost straight down the other side. There was a sign that said, “Speed limit 10 mph going down the mountain.” Right beside the sign sat a police officer in his car, waiting to catch speeders! Leapfrog and Toenail were only able to go 1 mph, so they knew that they weren’t speeding, so they happily waved to the police officer as they went past him. Toenail asked, “I wonder why that police car says Utah State Police on the side of it?” They did not realize that they were really in Utah, and not close to the ocean.
Then suddenly, before they realized what was happening the tricycles began going down that mountain! Leapfrog and Toenail made an amazing discovery at this time; tricycles do not have brakes! Toenail said, “I’ll slow down by dragging my feet on the ground!” However, he had completely forgotten that he only had socks on his feet, and in about 5 second his socks were completely ripped off his feet! His feet felt like they were on fire, and smoke was billowing up from his feet. Leapfrog wisely yelled to him, “Lift your feet up off the ground!” Then Leapfrog put his feet down to slow himself down, but he had completely forgotten that he was wearing rollerblades. They just rolled along extremely fast and did not slow him down at all! Faster and faster, they went, and faster still! Their tires were squealing on every curve and then they heard another noise! There was a loud siren and right behind them was the Utah State Police, he was very angry because Leapfrog and Toenail were speeding on tricycles! They could not stop, they kept going even faster, they went so fast that the police car could not even keep up with them!
And then they saw the bottom of the mountain. The ground looked very strange, it was all white, but there was a big lake right in front of them! They still could not stop, so they went right across the white ground toward the lake! The white stuff on the ground flew into the air like powder when they went speeding through it, and then, splash, they were in the lake, and they finally stopped! The cold water felt good on Toenail’s burning feet, and they slowly got out of the water. They decided to eat a few more of their very soggy French fries.
As soon as they had eaten their first bite, they got up and jumped for joy! The French fries tasted good now! They could not believe how good they tasted! They looked into the bag and saw that some of the white powder, from the ground, had gotten onto the French fries and made them taste good! The white powder on the ground was salt! They had gotten to the Great Salt Lake in Utah! There was salt everywhere. They filled the saltshaker completely to the top! They were wondering what the next clue would be, when suddenly the quietness was shattered by a loud siren! The Utah State Police car had arrived, and the officer did not look happy at all!
Application:
Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.”
We are to “flavor” the world around us (like the salt flavored those soggy French fries)! If you do not flavor your world, you are not helping the people around to find out about Jesus. Flavoring our world has to do with what we say, and how we act.
The things that you do and the things that you say make a difference! Either you are pointing people to Jesus, or you are point people away from Jesus. A Christian should always want to use their life to point people to Jesus.
How are you doing? Are you pointing the people around you to Jesus? What you say, and how you live your life really does matter!