There’s a mama with children at our school who speaks almost no English. She doesn’t come into the office very often, but when she does, I try desperately to communicate with her. I took five Spanish courses in college, and at one point, I was fairly conversational, but that was when I was speaking it often.
It’s been well over twenty years since college and I have rarely spoken Spanish. To say my skills are rusty, is a major understatement and it frustrates me when I need them. The mama that comes into our office, always smiles patiently as I search for the right words to communicate with her and thanks to Google, we usually get it figured out.
After she came in a couple of days ago, I thought about how very important communication is across all of our relationships. Strong communication can save partnerships, friendships and marriages. Poor communication can break them.
Our communication with God, is equally important on our faith journey. If we never talk to God and never pause to listen, how can we possibly learn what His plan is for us?
If we never pray, how can we expect our prayers to be answered?
I think that prayer can become particularly tricky, when we have allowed ourselves to stray away from talking with God for long stretches of time, whatever the reason may be. Just like my rusty Spanish skills, we find ourselves feeling awkward as we try to communicate.
Thankfully, God doesn’t need Google Translate to understand our needs or are hearts. The Bible tells us that He knows our needs before we even ask. Just like that sweet mama, in my office, He patiently waits as we struggle for the words. He doesn’t get frustrated when we try.
The beautiful truth is that the more we try to talk to God, the better we get at it and with every effort, He draws us in a little closer to Him, which is where He has wanted us to be all along. Unlike my Spanish skills, we can get comfortable with prayer quickly.
The more we pray, the more peace we feel. There’s never a situation that can’t be helped with prayer. It’s never too late to pray. Our prayer skills are never too rusty for God to understand and we are never too far gone to reach out for Him.
A clumsy attempt at speaking Spanish reminded me. Perhaps you needed reminding too.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂
