Babel’s Barriers

(Guest article!  Written by my good friend Sharon.)

Last year, a staff member of my Christian fellowship nearly offended me.

He told me that languages were evidence of sin. As a trilingual person, I am proud of my code-switching abilities. I had the privilege of growing up in a multilingual household. So for several seconds after hearing his comment, I refused to even entertain the thought that this treasured part of my identity was inherently sinful.

He continued to remind me of the story of the Tower of Babel, where God creates language barriers to scatter people across the earth. There are several hypotheses as to why God condemned the tower. The tower could have been a glorification of human pride. It could have been built out of people’s doubt of God’s promise to never destroy the world by a flood again. It could have been their disobedience of God’s command to disperse and fill the earth. Anyhow, I’m quite certain that tower building is not inherently sinful. Rather it was their refusal to place their trust in God that made their ambitious architecture sinful.

Thus the mere fact that the world we live in has hundreds of languages is testament to its brokenness.

So what? Indeed, so what. I didn’t think about it for three quarters. Then a conversation with three international students showed me just how this form of brokenness could get in the way of God’s plan.

Several weeks ago, I’m having a one-on-one at one of the tables outside of a campus coffee shop and we’re approached by a group of three international students. One of them bravely asks us what our favorite holidays are. She explains that it’s for her English class homework, and I immediately recognize this as Kimi’s fumbled opportunity from a couple weeks prior. In the spirit of Carpe diem, I shared the gospel with them by explaining how Easter was so much more than a human-sized rodent and children collecting packs of dog poison strewn across lawns. My friend follows suit and shares why she celebrates Christmas.

During the conversation, I learn that one of the girls is from Korea, another from Japan, and the last from Taiwan. Surely she’s the one who God wants me to lead to Christ. I can share about Him in her first language. I can do this.

As I’m excitedly sharing the Good News, I watch their faces to see if they’re tracking. I backtrack when necessary and internally rejoice as they’re getting it. Yes, the God of the universe loves you. Yes, He loved you so much that we can’t possibly imagine it. Yes, He sent His Son to die for you so you could be with Him again. Yes, He rose from the dead and is alive because He’s God. His name is Jesus.

Then I invite them to accept Christ. Turns out only the Japanese girl wants to know more. The Taiwanese girl is firmly apathetic.

God, really? You do understand that I spent eight years in a Christian Chinese school, right? You also understand that I haven’t studied Japanese in seven years? Don’t You see how hard it is for her to understand my words? What are you expecting me to do? How can you expect me to convey what Christ entering her heart means with this language barrier?

Two words: Trust Me.

Of course He knows that many of my words were missed. He is fully aware of my limitations. Yet He orchestrated my day’s events to make my qualifications irrelevant. He simply loves bringing glory to Himself. When He takes the credit I wanted for myself, He humbles me so I am reminded of who He is. He loves showing me time and time again that I’m woefully insufficient and that He is wholly sufficient.

Language barriers don’t faze Him. They make me deaf and mute, but He’s already using his creation to masterfully transcend them.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
The skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
Night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
No sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
Their words to the ends of the world.
(Psalm 19:1-4, NIV)

If He can bring people to their knees without a word, how much more can He do with His Spirit?

Moral of the story: Trust Him. Going out for evangelism is so much more about trusting Him to work rather than your rehearsed gospel illustration. God enjoys using awkward conversations. It means that evidence of the Spirit working becomes undeniably His work and not yours. It means that you praise and worship Him all the more for it.

As some of my favorite people say, “Do it scared.” Remain obedient even outside of your comfort zone because it’s when we’re fully aware of how we are not enough that we exercise trusting God the most. Your fear is not a valid excuse. Honestly, what do you have to lose? More importantly, what is at stake? The awkwardness and fatigue from mental gymnastics are small costs compared to your spiritual growth and a stranger’s eternity.

So here’s my challenge for my fellow multilinguals (and aspiring multilinguals). When given the opportunity, share the Gospel in your non-primary language. And for everyone in general, when given the opportunity, share especially when you’re not confident in your own abilities.

P.S.  If you lack the vocabulary to explain the Gospel in your non-primary language (or in your primary language), start by memorizing Romans 6:23. Then B-pack of the Navigators’ Topical Memory System. And you can always ask a Navsperson about a neat illustration.

No Marriage in Heaven!?

There is no marriage in Heaven.

I recently finished Wesley Hill’s book, Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality.  At one point, Hill’s writing reminded me of this oddly surprising fact, and I’ve been ruminating on it ever since.

I think this an often-neglected facet of Heaven that we’ve all but forgotten about.
So often, what people look forward to in heaven is reuniting with loved ones who have gone before them, especially if it’s a spouse.

And yet in Matthew 22:23-30, Jesus clearly states that in the resurrection, people “neither marry nor are given in marriage.”  Jesus says this in response to the Sadducees’ attempt to  disprove the Resurrection.  They try to trap Jesus with a tricky hypothetical situation of a woman who marries seven different men because they keep dying on her.  Before silencing the Sadducees on the question of the Resurrection once and for all, he dismisses this hypothetical situation by revealing this aspect of life after the Resurrection—the abolition of marriage.

Why is this so surprising, so foreign, so disturbing, even?

Because marriage is all we know.  It’s the closest human relationship we can think of.
And there’s a certain degree of intimacy that’s most possible in marriage, where two people become “one flesh,” where you are fully known and fully loved, where you are “naked and without shame” as in Eden.

And yet,  no marriage is perfect.  Marriage is sin-tainted and incomplete taste of the complete perfect fellowship we were designed for.  We were made in the image of God, and in that is our need for perfect fellowship. In the garden, Jesus asks the Father on behalf of his disciples, that they may be one, as He and the Father are one.  In Christ, the believers are one body.  This perfect unity, this perfect fellowship with one another will be perfected when we are cleansed forever from the sin that so hinders our earthly relationships.

I think this is an even more beautiful vision of Heaven—that we can look forward to a reunion with all of God’s people, not just those we joined on earth in the institution of marriage.  For marriage is just a temporary partnership to experience a taste of perfect fellowship and journey through life with “until death do us part.”

It’s at death that marriage ends.  A man who has remarried will face no awkward “Who’s this other woman?” conversation when he sees his first wife again in Heaven.  Gone will be the rightful possessiveness of romantic relationships here on earth.  Instead, there will be gratitude, as each will say to the other, “I’m thankful for the time on earth we got to share.  And I’m happy to share in this new perfect fellowship with you.”

I think this has another implication, and it’s for our earthly relationships that don’t quite work out.  Relationships are an investment of time, effort, emotions, an attempt to get a taste of that perfect fellowship we so desire.  When those fall through, when our hope is disappointed, we can lament the brokenness, the circumstances and shortcomings that bent the relationship to breaking.  And yet there is a sweetness amidst the bitterness.  When we realize that all relationships end, whether in death or otherwise, we can have that same gratitude, thankfulness for the time, the love, the life that was shared, even if imperfectly.  And ultimately, those who are in Christ have the hope of reuniting in perfected fellowship in the next life.

 

(The abolition of marriage in Heaven begs the question of the role of sexuality in Heaven, but that’s a speculation for another day.)

Tunesday: “Even Me” – I Am They

It may not be Tuesday, but it is most definitely ‪#Tunesday!

One of the worship songs that really stood out to me during Lent was I Am They’s “King of Love,” which by the end of Lent, I could not remember its name, and its lyrics were quickly slipping from my mind, save for some mention of a king, a shepherd, and a weird grammatical inversion.

All that to say, my soundtrack for the last few weeks has been I Am They’s self-titled record.  It’s stirring folk-pop worship, in the vein of Rend Collective, but with just a little more pop and a little less folk.  So many good songs on this record: the afore mentioned “King of Love,” the powerful anthems, “Over & Over Again” and “Make A Way,” and to the slow cry of “Here’s My Heart.”

But the one song that’s really stood out and touched my heart has been “Even Me.”  It’s a song that speaks to God’s complete knowledge of my thoughts, my brokenness, my past, my choices to wander and run from Him.  And in the midst of all of that, “I’m held by this one thing,” I rest secure in His perfect love for me, even me.  He loved me to the grave, and now I stand forgiven and free.  Nothing can separate me from His love.
It’s beautiful; It’s the gospel.  Take a listen.

I Am They explains the story behind the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-JJQkYFd6I&nohtml5=False

I Have Decided…To Take a Break From Jesus

After much consideration over the past 24 hours, I’ve decided to take a break from my relationship with Jesus.

I met Jesus at a church camp a year and a half ago.  I would talk to him occasionally, but mostly when I needed help with school.  I lost touch with him for a few years, graduated high school, all of that.  Things only got serious about the middle of last year, when I realized he was also at my college campus, and he knew a bunch of my friends!

We started talking more, and then hanging out together in the local coffee shops and on the campus quad.  Then I realized he wrote me a really long love letter, that he sometimes refers to as “the Bible” or his “Word” me.  It’s really long, no joke.  I haven’t even finished it yet.

But lately, things have kind of been getting a little weird.

I feel like he knows me a little too well, but I don’t know him well enough.  There’s new things I keep finding out about him and some things about him that I just don’t understand.  He tells me that he knows when I sit and when I rise, he perceives my thoughts from afar.  I’m concerned that he’s either a stalker or some kind of weird mind reader.  He also says that he searches me and knows my heart.  I might want to start putting some boundaries on this relationship, and y’know, “guarding my heart.”

I just feel like he wants me a little too much.  He makes these creepy promises that he’ll be with me always, to the very end of the age or something.  He keeps telling me that he’d die for me, and he makes it sound like he already has.  Is he a zombie or something?
I also feel like he wants me to be a lot more committed than I already am, and I’m just not ready for that yet.  What if I find something better than him?

And I kind of see my relationship with Jesus is beginning to impact my other friendships.  He just takes up a lot of my time.  I’ve been finding myself getting up early and going to the mountains and stuff just to get some time alone with him, talking to him and learning more about who he is.  My friends also tell me that I’ve been talking about him  all the time.  And, the truth is, I really can’t stop thinking about him.  Everything—acts of selfless love, things in church, even nature—just reminds me of him.

So I think I’m going to take some time focus on myself, to find myself apart from him, and just to live a little.  I feel like I really need to prioritize academics, and finally catch up on some of those Netflix shows that I’ve been falling behind on.

I hope Jesus will be okay without me for a little while, and drop the whole “nothing in all creation will be able to separate me from his love” thing for a bit.

All that said, he’s a really great guy, his dad is really awesome, and you all should still definitely meet him.  It might change your life.

Happy April Fools’ Day!
Inspired by The Babylon Bee, “Your Trusted Source For Christian News Satire.”