Languages

I've spent the last few years informally learning a little Spanish here and there.  Being that my husband speaks Spanish as his first language and his family speaks mainly Spanish, I figured it might be a good idea to pick up a little along the way.  I never thought I'd one day be living in a Spanish-speaking country or that I would one day NEED to speak Spanish.  (Makes me wish I'd paid more attention during my three years of Spanish class in high school instead of trying to make my teacher mad so he'd curse in his other four languages.  Lo siento Señor Gerald!) 

Learning a new language has been one of the most difficult, frustrating, humbling and rewarding things I've ever done and it has invoked MANY different emotions along the way.  I've experienced the isolation and loneliness of feeling like I can't communicate or participate socially, I've experienced the rush of having had an informal conversation with another person and realizing they are understanding me, I've experienced that exciting moment where you realize you just understood EVERYTHING you just heard, and I've experienced the sweaty hands and pounding heart when someone puts me on the spot to talk and I've not had time to practice what I wanted to say.  It's a long journey that is not nearly over for me, but it's happening little by little.  (You can read more about the reason I'm living abroad here!)

Today, I started thinking about how learning a new language relates so much to how we should lead our lives as Christians.  I'm not sure if it will make sense to anyone but me, but give the idea a chance.  Let's see if I can explain what I'm trying to say... 

In learning a new language it's best to:

Listen more than you speak.

James 1:9 tells us that as Christians we should be quick to listen and slow to speak.  When you are learning a new language and you listen to a native speaker, you will notice things like their dialect and pronunciation.  By listening you pick up common phrases, expressions, and you learn the rhythm to the language.  What originally sounded like gibberish or like a long stream of words eventually starts sounding like individual words that have meaning.  The more you listen, the more you begin recognizing what the language is SUPPOSED to sound like which helps you to avoid errors when you speak.   For someone who likes to talk, I've realized what a poor listener I was.  I've also been amazed at how much learning to listen has helped me... not just in learning Spanish, but in guarding my tongue.  What if we were to listen to God more?  What if we took the time to really listen to what He had to say instead of being so quick to speak?  I think we would become more sensitive to His words, and we might start to make sense or meaning out the the words He speaks into our lives.  We would learn to clearly know His voice and recognize immediately when He's speaking into our lives.  If we focused more on listening, our understanding of Him and His words might improve.  

Think in the language you're trying to speak.  Stop translating!

This is hard to do.  When you first start speaking a new language you're always thinking in English and trying to translate your words and phrases into another language.  The problem with this is, languages never completely match up and sentence structures aren't always the same.  This slows down your progression in learning another language.  In life many times we tend to think "carnally" (in the flesh) and try to make a sort of "translation" between our carnal being and our spiritual being.  What if we were to stop thinking carnally and we were to start trying to think spiritually? Romans 8: 6-8 says, "For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God".  Once you start thinking in the language you're trying to speak, you start noticing that you're advancing much more quickly.  Likewise, if we were to start thinking the "language" in which we are trying to speak (or live) in terms of our spiritual life, we would be able to advance much more quickly. We'd begin understanding the (spiritual) language of God and we'd really advance in our progress in speaking (and living) spiritually.  We could stop wasting time on "translating" and get down to business of living and communicating with God!

Slow down when talking.  Think about and plan what you're going to say.

How many times have we said something that we immediately regretted or wished that we could take back?  I know that I am guilty.  Learning a new language has FORCED me to slow down and THINK about what I'm saying before I say it.  It's amazing how when you stop and think just how much more time you have to weed out and refine what you want to say.  It's also helpful in insuring that the things you say are kind, clear, and complete.  Proverbs 18:21 warns us of the power of our tongues.  It tells us, "The tongue has the power of life and death" (NIV, part A).  In speaking Spanish at the moment, I mentally arrange my sentence and then speak it.  What if we were to apply this to our daily lives?  What if we put as much thought and planning into what we were trying to say?  We'd become better communicators and I imagine we'd avoid a lot of unnecessary conflicts and hurt feelings due to poorly thought out comments. 

Allow yourself the room to practice and therefore make mistakes.

An inevitable part of learning a new language is that you're going to have to practice and you're going to make mistakes.  The sooner you accept that, the better.  In our Christian lives, we need to realize we are in a way a "practicing" christian.  We are learning how to live our lives in a way that does not come natural to us.  We have to "practice" daily and we are bound to mistakes.  Since I've been here I've messed up, I've even accidentally said a bad word or two (oops!).  Although I wanted to crawl under a table and die, I just apologized, made note of the mistake so as not to repeat it, and moved on.  The important part about making mistakes is what we do after we make them.  We apologize (or repent) and move on.  We can't stop "practicing" because of one mistake.  If we did, we'd never advance or improve.  

Ask for clarification.  It's okay to not understand everything the first time.  

This part is personally hard for me.  It's hard to ask for someone to repeat something again and again and sometimes again.  It's also humbling to have to admit, I don't understand.  But we need to.  What if we were to be honest with ourselves and with God and instead of acting like we had it all together and that we always understand, we were to admit to ourselves and to God... I'm lost.  I have no clue what you mean, what you said, or why this is happening.  What if we let God repeat things to us until we "got it"?  We'd be different people that were more confident and sure of God and his workings in our lives.

There you have it, my little brain blurp for the day.  I don't know if it will make sense to anyone but me... but I love it when God takes real, every day things in my life and teaches me through them.  No one ever said that being a Christian would be easy.  There are good days and bad days, days where you question why you even try, days you feel left behind and isolated, and days where you wonder if it's worth it.  The same as learning a new language.  The consolation is, it IS worth, He IS worth it, and His language is definitely worth learning.

Con mucho amor,

  xoxo