Speaking a Different Language

This past week I have spent a lot of time with Latino workers who cannot speak English. As I’ve been with these men, I feel like I’m missing opportunities to make an impact on their lives because I can’t really communicate with them. We smile and offer kind greetings, but beyond that we are hopeless. How sad that I live in an area where so many men and women don’t speak my language and I can’t express what I’m feeling with them.

I’ve learned through life that we can even speak the same language and yet be in different worlds. Tami and I have been married for nearly 32 years, and yet there are days when it seems like we don’t even understand what the other is saying. Yesterday was a classic example of this when we were out shopping for new French Doors to replace our sliding glass door. Our house was built in the late 1990s, so our sliding glass door is smaller than the standard door installed in new homes today. We discovered that we would have to special order one and started going through the questions to pick out the door for us. As the sales rep went through the many questions, he came to questions dealing with color and styles. I have learned through the years that it’s best to let Tami choose what she likes to keep the process moving. I’ll say something if I really don’t like what she’s picked out, but most times I’m fine with her taste in décor. Well, we started getting questions about what we wanted the windows to look like, what style of handles would we like, and how would we like the door to lock. I would look to Tami for an answer and she’d tell me that she didn’t understand, so I’d show her pictures and explain different features but kept getting the deer in the headlights look. As we left the store I knew that Tami had no idea of what we’d just picked out because her mind couldn’t grasp it. Later that evening when we were alone I explained everything and she could finally imagine what we were talking about. I will have to go back to the store and make some changes because once she understood she could express what she wanted.

In life we are all going to come across these types of situations, and I’ve learned that I need to find a way around the communication barriers. With the work crew at my house I find someone who can speak Spanish and ask that person to help me. At the store I keep asking the sales rep questions until I understand what we are talking about. My question for you is this: how do you find the answers when you have questions that relate to your spiritual life? Do you turn to the Bible? How about prayer? And God has placed in your life spiritually mature Christians who can help you. Many feel like the truths of living a godly life are a foreign language and don’t try to discover the deeper things God has for them. But I can assure you, if you start pursuing those spiritual truths, they will begin to make sense and you will be able to live a life complete in the Lord. Remember what Jesus taught us in Matthew 7:7: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”