The Language Barrier

If my count is correct, I have been to eight countries where the English language was not the standard means of communicating. My first experience was in South Korea. I remember handing a small piece of paper with markings I could not read to a cab driver. We shut the doors of the little green metal motorized box and disappeared into the flow of identical vehicles. I realized as we drove that if the cab driver were to cast us out of the cab, I would be utterly helpless. There was a perpetual and complete sense of the loss of independence. An unfamiliar culture and unknown spoken language rendered me an isolated island of need in a thriving city of abundance.

Throw into that environment the not-too-undeserved suspicion of anything that could carry the typical arrogance of US overseas travelers so often ooze. There is good reason to feel a touch of trepidation.

We sang with gusto to the tunes we recognized in the worship services. However, in other unknown Gospel songs, we could only clap our hands with the congregations and trusted we were not blaspheming.

Even when my interpreter relayed my sermons, I trusted he was doing more than just translating my English into Korean. I truly trusted that he was interpreting what I wanted to communicate. For all I knew, he could have been ordering lunch.

There is always a sense of insecurity when we find ourselves on the opposite side of a language barrier.

My experience has been that I came into this world able to sense and hear God speak without the tools to understand or interpret what he was saying. I was better at listening and understanding what people were saying than what Yahweh revealed. As a result, even what I believed about Yahweh passed through human beings. That was not the best way of building a faith that would sustain or enhance life.

My spiritual development was marked by convictions saturated by human reasoning and easily tarnished by how I felt on a particular day or what seemed reasonable and fair in the society in which I lived. My “feelings” of justice and fairness may be errant personal opinions, not much different from those with whom I went to church. However, those opinions/beliefs became identifying marks of who was acceptable and who was not. Personal views always have a way of becoming fences that separate and alienate. That separation or alienation starts between God and me. And it always moves into deadly adulterations of relationships with people who do not think like me, look like me, or live like me.

This language barrier began in the Garden of Eden, erupting between Cain and Able and extending to all humanity that followed. The Old Testament history is a story of God saying one thing and people hearing something else. In the beginning, Adam and God communicated clearly. They even named all the animals together. That took much clear communication. But it didn’t go too well when Adam and Eve began to talk to each other. And it just got worst when their children came. God spoke and taught the Divine language of heaven, but the people chose not to work at relearning it. Instead, they clung to the language of their creation, the language of the cursed earth. (Gen 3)

When the Garden gate was closed behind Adam and Eve, they moved into a new culture and new language of their own making. But, unfortunately, our self-made language is steeped in the personal preferences of self-indulgent humans. This substitute language has rendered the preferences of the Divine One obsolete and unintelligible.

A longing will mark a healthy Believer for the day when the language of the Garden replaces the language of the cursed earth. It takes time and hard, diligent work to overcome any language barrier. It is no different in learning the language of the Garden. While God can speak the language of the earth, he never does. God insists on us learning His Divine Language. The reward is more incredibly fulfilling than we have the power to imagine.

Here is the challenge for 2023, get more proficient in learning, understanding, and speaking the Language of God. He is most certainly talking to each of us. The only question is, do we understand what He is saying to us? I, for one, want to get better at hearing and understanding what God is saying.

Psalm 32:8-9 CSB

I will instruct you and show you the way to go;

with my eye on you, I will give counsel.

Do not be like a horse or mule,

without understanding,

that must be controlled with bit and bridle

or else it will not come near you.

Photo – The picture is of a “food truck” in India. I didn’t recognize the food and couldn’t read the menu.