I sit in the classroom as Hannah writes a nonsensical story about iguanas that only ingest iceberg lettuce. The students are practicing “I” sounds today. As I sit and watch them work hard at mastering these foreign sounds, I’m reminded that this isn’t how things have always been. There was a time when people all spoke the same language.
At one point in human history, there were no language barriers to overcome. Being where I am, there is a part of me that longs for those days. I long to actually tell the sweet woman who always gives us lychee fruit how much I love her and how beautiful I think she is in her sparkly pink blouse. I wish I could tell our sweet host mom how much I admire her and how I appreciate her mothering gestures when I’m so far from my own Momma.
I’m forced to remind myself that God doesn’t act without a purpose. There was a reason He confused the languages. Genesis 11 tells how the people wanted to make a name for themselves by building a tower that reached to the heavens. Now that might seem outlandish, but verses six and seven say,
“And the Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.’”
Did you catch that? The Lord said that nothing would be impossible for them. Even when they were motivated to accomplish an ungodly goal (trying to make a name for themselves apart from God and who He says they are), there would be no stopping them. So God intervened.
This story speaks so meaningfully to the power of unity. Ungodly people motivated by an ungodly goal would have been able to accomplish anything. And God said a tower would only be the beginning. I think He saw what could become of man if he allowed their sinful hearts to go on unchecked. So He stepped in.
But now He calls us to unity. We are called to not only attain, but “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). United by the Spirit and bonded with peace, we are to go forth accomplishing God’s will. This unity isn’t achieved through a common language. It is achieved through the Spirit of love and the bond of peace.
So I can give the woman with the lychees a hug and smile to let her know I love her. I can laugh with Channa and show her with my actions that she is dear to my heart. If people united in opposition to God would have been unstoppable, how much more power is available to the people of God when we walk together, united by His Spirit, to accomplish His will in the earth? We are one people – the people of God. We have one language – the language of love. I believe what God said of the people at Babel is even more true of us when we choose to live like that, “… this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”
Amen. So let it be.
