Your Mother Tongue from a Foreigner...

10 "There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning, 11 but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me."

19  "Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue."  -taken from 1 Corinthians 14

To place Paul's words in their true context, he is writing to the church of Corinth about speaking in tongues.  On a broader level, he is coming straight out of defining LOVE in the previous chapter and moves here to address encouraging the church and revealing God's message to people in words they understand so that the church may be built up, so that instruction can be carried out, and so that unbelievers will fall on their face and worship God.  The point is that God be revealed to mankind in words that have meaning.  In words that convict.  In words that build up.

But God, I'm tired.  And my brain might be full.

I'm losing my French.  I miss Pidgin.  I miss the familiar sounds of Nooni.  I tried my hand at Sesotho last year.  Now I'm learning Afrikaans and Zulu at the same time.  And Lord, some days I just want to go back to a language I already know.  One where I don't feel like I might be stuck in toddlerhood for the rest of my life.  

What's that you say, Lord?  

Love never ends?  

Never.  

So we never stop trying.  We never stop trying to reach people with the meaning of His love in a language that is richer to their ears than my own, so that possibly, just possibly with 5 words that make sense, a side of God may be revealed in a way that thousands of words of English could never unveil.

And yes.  English is spoken here.  But the words of your mother, your mother tongue, penetrate deeper and richer than the language of a foreigner, even when these words stumble forth from the foreigner's tongue with the awkwardness of a toddler.

Extra Afrikaans lessons with Mevrou DuPloy after school

Faith gave me my first Zulu lesson last week.

Because there are people here who I really, really love.

"And to him was given dominion
    and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
    should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
    which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
    that shall not be destroyed."
Daniel 7:14