Words

I am fascinated with words.

How is it that we can communicate ideas from one human mind to another using little squiggles on a page or by forming breathy sounds? How do babies learn to coalesce nascent thought into the language of their environment? How does a group of people agree on vocabulary and grammar to express its knowledge and culture? What power exists with simple words!

But despite their power, words are risky. What if I don't choose the word that exactly expresses what I am thinking?  What if I don't speak or write it clearly?  What if you misread or mishear my words?  What if the word you understand means something different to you than it does to me?  What if the word you think you remember isn't the word you actually heard? As in the children's "telephone" game, even the best-intentioned use of words is far from foolproof.

So why should an omnipotent, omniscient God who could have imprinted our brains with absolute inerrant truth instead choose to use mere words to communicate with us? Mightn't we misunderstand those words? Couldn't we misread them, mistranslate them, or even forget what they were? Why use such a frail vehicle as words? But then I think of Christ, "the Word," who expressed his purposes using human language, which is every bit as frail as human flesh. He accepted the risk of his message being misheard, misunderstood, misinterpreted, misremembered. Why?

I do not know.

But there is good news. If God can powerfully use the weak vessel of human language to communicate his will to the world throughout the millenniums, then perhaps he can use a lumpy ball of clay like me to do some of his work for a few decades. Even if I, like Christ, am misheard, misunderstood, misinterpreted, or misremembered, if I can simply say his words, if I can just speak the truth of the Word, then there is hope.