"You are loved, you are redeemed, you are never alone... you are free, you are healed, you are valuable, and in Me, all things are possible."
Have you ever tried to have a meaningful conversation with someone who didn't speak your language? It basically becomes a guessing game of charades, where you are unable to get the other person to understand let alone respond to you. As much as this is a funny picture in our imaginations, if there was any urgency regarding what you needed to talk about, that so called 'conversation' would only result in their blank stare and your growing frustration.
I think this may resemble the conversations we have with the Lord from time to time. It's as though our communication becomes one sided. We pour out our hearts or desperate appeals, just to feel them bounce off an invisible wall. We have no reassuring come back. No response at all... just a dull silence. As if we were speaking to God in a language that was completely foreign to Him.
So, what is the language of God? Is it difficult and complicated to learn? Well, it turns out to be as complicated as when a sinner cries out in faith to the Lord for salvation, and God responds with His saving grace. Grace is God's gift to us, and not just for salvation. We find it in every promise in His Word, and each time we approach Him. Grace is God's continuous approach and response to us. His sovereign nature is and always will hold the quality of grace in our relationship with Him. Grace is God's language to us. What is equally important to understand, is that grace always responds to the language of faith.
This perpetual exchange between grace and faith, becomes an ongoing conversation between the Lord and us, it forms the pattern of a language that we both understand and can respond to. Grace is simply what God says to us, in His Word, and in our hearts, and faith is our response to Him. I once heard someone say that faith is a positive response to receive what the Lord has freely done for us.
Grace says, "You are loved, you are redeemed, you are never alone... you are free, you are healed, you are valuable, and in Me, all things are possible." Faith responds, "Thank you Lord, I believe you, I trust you, I receive all you have done for me... I am yours and I delight in You."
Now that's the language God always responds to, it's the one He has bound Himself to honour. In Hebrew 4:14, we learn that Jesus is the high priest of our confession. The Word confess means to say the same thing. So, when we speak to the Lord, either in our approach or response, our words must carry the same truth we hear in His Words. We must communicate with Him, in His language. The language of faith that agrees with and responds to His grace.
So the next time you feel like your prayers are falling on 'deaf ears', try speaking the language you know is heard and guaranteed to bring a response that will fill your life with peace and joy. Speak to the Lord in the language of faith, and listen to His response of grace. Let your on-going conversation lead you into the fulfilment of every promise He has so graciously given to you.
