Words and Stuff

My seat mates on the Chicago to Frankfurt were young German couple returning from a vacation in California and Las Vegas.  As I tried to speak German with them I realized how quickly I had forgotten what I had brushed up on just a few years ago during a family vacation in Germany.  Struggling and stumbling through old language pathways in a brain apparently stiffened with its added burden of years, I wondered how in the world I am going to make myself understood in Bulgaria and Serbia.  I don’t want only to be heard through an interpreter.  I want to convey my love for my Bulgarian and Serbian brothers personally, directly, not, so to speak, second-hand – or should that be “second mouth”?

So once again, I find myself retreating to God’s Word.  I will be able to open my Bible to passages that speak not only God’s love my mine, and then ask my brothers and sisters to open their Bibles to the same passage, then simply add what Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, “It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace;” which they can then read in Bulgarian, “И право е да мисля това за всички вас, понеже ви имам на сърце, тъй като вие всички сте съучастници с мене в благодатта,” or Serbian, “Kao što je pravo da ja ovo mislim za sve vas, jer vas imam u srcu u okovima svojima i u odgovoru i potvrđivanju jevanđelja.”

Should we not always go to God’s Word; and not only when we have no other language in common?  For in His Word alone is life.