I grew up on a farm in The Orange Free State, a province in the middle of South Africa. Being Afrikaans-speaking, I regarded English as a foreign language. Fortunately, for me, my parents had English-speaking friends and I picked up on English through their kids, although we almost never spoke English when we were together.
One day my sister and I had to explain to our English friends, who saw a grasshopper for the first time, what it was, and we translated it directly from Afrikaans as – “springcan”.
It did not stop there. One day an English speaking salesperson visited us. They often visited the farms selling anything from oil paintings to fertiliser. I was about 4 or 5 years of age.
When the man knocked on the door, I ran to open it and said, “Hello”. He replied, “Hi, hello young man, tell me, is your mom or dad at home?”
“Yes,” I said and he continued, “May I come in?” “Yes,” I replied and opened the door wider for him to enter.
“Now tell me,” he said. “What is your name?” “Yes,” I answered. At that point, my mom arrived and continued the conversation in this foreign language.
Sometimes I think we treat Jesus as if He is speaking a foreign language. We often say yes, without even knowing what it really means.
When Jesus says, “I love you so much!”, we have no idea what He actually says. “Jesus, I am not like other people. I have issues that nobody would understand and You cannot even imagine how pitiful I really am.”
“Pitiful, oh really, My child?”
We sometimes think Jesus’ suffering ended on the cross. What we do not comprehend, is that Jesus’ love is much bigger, wider, and deeper than ours, causing pain and suffering in the heart of Jesus, far more intense than what we could ever imagine, and that over our circumstances.
When we hurt, He experiences the pain too, only a little more intense. Nobody around us may even notice we exist but He feels our innermost pain 24 hours every day.
He hears in our language of thought, the “words” we use when we feel miserable or the words of doubt when we think He is not near, and the most awfully false accusations of thinking He has forgotten about us.
It could be that when the Bible says that there will be no more tears in heaven one day, is meant the tears of Jesus…. flowing for our lack of completely surrendering into His arms while living on earth. (Rev 21:4)
Do we really know what Jesus meant when He said, “Follow Me, believe in Me,” or, “I will never leave you nor forsake you”? The love and care of Jesus is one language we should spend more time on getting ourselves acquainted with.