Speaking God

One of the simple lessons we learned in our recent Evangelism Workshops is that in order to speak God to people, you first have to listen to them and get to know them.

God can't be spoken without first being shown.  Our actions speak a hundred times louder than our words when conveying the divine.  Talking about love, joy, compassion, forgiveness, and grace leaves us with abstract definitions.  Only when we're shown these things do we truly understand them.

But love, joy, compassion, togetherness, and the like look far different to the 84-year-old farmer, the 16-year-old school kid, and the 42-year-old mother of three.  The language that makes sense to one of these three people would not translate to the other two.  Spending an afternoon talking about combines would seem boring to most 16-year-olds and a stressful distraction to the mom.  Children running willy-nilly would grate on the ears of the student and farmer both but would be a life-affirming blessing to the mother.  Playing the latest computer game would be a total waste of time for anyone but the teenager.

If you want to show God to any of these people you have to understand their language and translate.  If you haven't taken the time to get to know them, how do you know if you're speaking God to them or just being an annoyance?

Take some time this week to listen to someone in your family, at work, in your circle of friends, or even a stranger.  Learn a little more about them and their language.  Then ask yourself how that language and the enduring gifts of God intersect.  At that intersection you will find the time, place, and means to speak about what the Lord is doing today.

Try it!  You'll be surprised!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)