Wheat Ridge: Invented Languages

Click through to read my devotion on invented languages. While you are on the site learn about this wonderful ministry.

Part of Something Big

This past Sunday I got the chance to teach first grade Sunday school. The story for the week was “Jesus Teaches His Disciples to Pray.” We had interesting discussions about prayers. We analyzed our prayers and found that they mostly consist of requests. We practiced prayers of thanks, praise and confession. It was a good lesson with a cool group of children.

Then I remembered that I had spent the previous summer teaching the Lord ’s Prayer in sign language as part of our twice a month children’s messages. I asked the class to sign with me and was touched to see they remembered and could sign each petition. Because of careful study that beautiful prayer has been installed deep within their brains.

The prayer becomes grace as it weaves its way into their faith.

I love using sign language to teach children things. It keeps their hands busy while their brains learn, it connects movement to new learning, and it exposes them to another language other than their home language. I was happy to teach them the Lord’s Prayer in sign, but their knowledge of this prayer is not my doing. I am blessed, along with the parents, teachers, and pastors of the children in our church. We are blessed to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We are a part of God’s work to teach His Word.

I am the director of child and family ministry at our church. When I recruit members to volunteer for various events I often encourage them to “find their joy.” I try to emphasize that working with children is a “get to” not a “have to.” God provides joy in the teaching and sharing of His Word. 

There is grace in service and it works its way into our hearts.

There is joy whenever God’s Word is taught or learned, whenever it is spoken, read, or heard. Such actions grow our faith and increase our joy.

There is joy in God’s Word.

There is promise in God's Word.

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There is grace in God’s Word.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth: it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

 

For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Isaiah 55:8-11

The Potter

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with precious metals such as gold, silver, or platinum. The result is a re-making of old, broken pottery into a new piece. A piece once again useful and arguably more valuable than before.  The practice is related to the Japanese philosophy known as wabi-sabi which looks for beauty in the flawed.

As a child of God who feels her age more and more each day, I am enamored by the metaphor of Kintsugi. I love the idea of taking something old and not only making it new again, but in the process making it even better than before.

Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. Psalms 31: 9-10

I feel older by the day, hour minute. In the morning I carefully roll out of bed and limp until my legs seem to remember how to walk. Like a five-year-old just starting school routines I have to prepare my school bag the night before so I don’t forget important things like lessons, thumb drives, and lunch. During the day, I sit horribly close to the computer and squint while reading. Bedtime seems to always require some sort of anti-inflammatory or analgesic medication in order to bring on the respite of sleep. I even have broken bones fixed not with gold, but titanium steel.

 And let’s not even talk about my new fear of falling again.  My lifeline necklace is just around the corner.

Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbors and an object of dread to my closest friends – those who see me on the street flee from me. I am forgotten as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery. Psalm 31:11-12

I am not sure what made the Psalmist's friends flee from him, but I suspect my tendency to repeat favorite stories as if no one has heard them before contributes to the look I see in the eyes of my friends when I approach.

We are broken pottery are we not? We have wear and tear. We have experienced grief and tears. We participate in our own breaking through our selfish desires, our lack of trust, or sinful nature. 

We are broken.

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins. Isaiah 64:6-7

Even in our brokenness we strive to be useful. Much as Job used shards of pottery to scrap at his sores, we hope that in our sin we can still do good. But as these words from Isaiah indicate – even our righteous acts, are good deeds, our attempts to be useful, are like filthy rags.

We are useless.

But, that is not the end of our story.

Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64: 8

God is our potter.  He does not dismiss our brokenness as un-fixable or unusable. He does not toss us onto the garbage heap to be buried in the landfill. Because He knows us He looks at our brokenness and sees potential. We belong to Him. He is our creator. And He is our re-creator. He scoops up the shards of our broken life and applies the precious metal of forgiveness and grace. 

He makes us new again. . . and again, and again, and again. 

We are precious and beautiful and valuable through the work of God.

Faith in the rainroom

This art installation offered people the opportunity to walk in the rain and not get wet. It must have been an eerie experience. Your senses of sight, smell, and hearing would have registered “wet” but your sense of touch would have denied the fact.

The installation worked with a special camera that saw the shape of individuals and turned off water sprinklers above them. Each individual would see and sense rain all around, but would stay dry.

I love this example because it is a mix of science, art, and experience. I also love it because I see it as a metaphor for my faith life. 

I want to go through life seeing and experiencing everything – but I don’t want to get wet, or hurt, or tired, or discouraged. I want God to protect me from all of that.

But God uses the wet, the pain, the weariness, and the sadness to teach and shape me. If I were to go through life without pain, I would stay the same. I would never grow. I would come to the false assumption that I did not need a Savior because I had no need of comfort.

Life has pain and weariness. Life is not fair or just. Life is life and I live what happens, feel what invades my heart, and learn the lessons in spite of me rather than because of me.

The rain helps me to feel the joy of being warm and dry. The rain reminds me that I am open to the dangers of the world and in need of protection. The rain, in its own way, teaches me to live and trust God.

God does protect me. He surrounds me with His love. He nurtures my faith in Him. He brings good out of my rain and uses me to reach out to others. The rain in my life does not come back to God empty. 

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55: 8-11

Showing Mercy

Mercy is a challenge to receive and a challenge to give.

As humans, we are not built for the likes of mercy. We do not seem to be able to comprehend a gift with no strings attached, with no merit, given to people who decidedly do not deserve it

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But that’s mercy for you.

Check out this clip of two basketball teams in Texas. One team is made up of boys from a private school. We can assume these young men work hard and their school to keep their grades up, to keep their record clean, to practice their basketball skills. When their schoolmates, teachers, and parents cheer for them, it is easy to assume they deserve it.

But, what about the opposing team? This team is made up- of boys who are in a detention center because they have been convicted of a felony. They do not deserve praise. Our justice system has determined that they deserve punishment.

Then mercy steps in where we think it doesn’t belong. Mercy in the form of a couple of young men bothered by the fact that the detention center team has no one to cheer for them. The end result is priceless as the crowd enthusiastically cheers for the team that deserves only punishment.

The young men in the detention center know why they are there and why they deserve punishment. It seems, from their comments, that perhaps they have experienced precious little mercy in their young lives.

Punishment is a powerful tool used to shape behavior. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. As I explain to college students preparing for teaching, some children are more motivated by their anger, their fear, or their need to control than they are by a punishment or a reward. Punishment alone is not likely to be effective in making a change in behavior.

Everyone needs mercy. Everyone needs to feel loved and forgiven. We receive mercy on a daily basis from a Heavenly Father who is perfect and has the right to hold us accountable for our imperfection.

May He bless us not only with His perfect mercy, but with the wisdom to share that mercy with others – especially the ones who need it most.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever. Psalm 23