Sin
speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother
tongue, and you hang on every word. (6:11)
I’m sitting on a train, traveling through Italy, unable to
understand the conversations going on
around me. It’s like babble or white
noise that I can’t decipher. My mind
can’t comprehend the words, so I’m tuned out to them. However, when the occasional English word is
spoken, my ears perk up. It’s my mother
tongue and in the midst of all the noise around me, a word of English
immediately registers in my mind and I strain to hear it clearly and
understand.
Paul is describing the same situation for us – sin is the
foreign language that we cannot understand and therefore we tune it out. It becomes white noise to us. God, however, is speaking the words to us
that the Holy Spirit recognizes as truth in our ears.
In daily life, I am often more tuned in to the urgency of my
circumstances, the desires of my selfish heart, and the language of my
culture. I’m straining to hear words
that recognize my accomplishments, stroke my ego, affirm my parenting, let me
off the hook, or that promise empty blessings.
These are obviously not God’s words, not the mother tongue of His
Kingdom.
Which language are you hearing more clearly? The language of sin (selfish desires,
justifications, temptations that I have become comfortable with)? Or, the true mother tongue - God’s truth about
Himself, you, and the world?
1 comment:
What beautiful comments you shared. Thank you!
I want to listen to God's voice and it just so happens the kids and I have been talking a lot about this. I am going through an interesting phase with my six year old son. He has begun lying A LOT! He lies about little things and big things. I want him to hear the "right" voice and do the right thing. I don't understand what's behind this behavior. As a result, my default pattern is to begin to wonder what I might have done to him to cause this behavior and how I might fix it. But the God of my salvation will take care of the end result. These chapters have helped me as I think through this with God. I remind myself that He loves Luke more than me and He is listening. But am I really listening? I don't want to miss His voice. I desire Luke and me to hear His voice.
Post a Comment