Confound It!

Confound: to perplex or amaze, especially by a sudden disturbance or surprise; bewilder; confuse.

The Bible tells us in Genesis 11 that the people of the earth, all of one language, wanted to make a name for themselves and did not want to be scattered on the earth. The idea did not please God, so He said, “Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.” The result was the scattering of the people “upon the face of all the earth.”

For 15 years or more, a few Grace members have been dealing with the confusion that God instituted, by trying to help people from all over the world learn English. I often think He could hardly have thought of a better plan to scatter people. It’s a lot of work to try to learn a new language. It’s a lot of work to try to communicate when we don’t know each other’s languages. It takes patience, kindness, perseverance and a lot of other qualities we don’t want to work on.

The other day as I tried to give a devotional talk at English classes, I was stopped cold by a student who misunderstood what I said and refused to accept it. She objected vigorously and loudly. She thought I had said something untrue about God and she would not let it stand. I was proud of her for standing up for God! We tried to clarify, and the rest of the talk substantiated her view, so I hope she was satisfied. But we never know whether we have gotten our point across.  On the way home, I told God, with tears, that He has to get us through this mess He made. We need Him to give understanding of our English words as well as of spiritual truths.

My husband’s niece, Judy, spent her young adult years in Europe, smuggling Bibles into “closed” countries with Brother Andrew’s organization. She learned several languages and later married Peter, a Swiss man who also knew several languages. But they had no common language! After Judy’s mother, Peggy, had visited the newlyweds in Switzerland, she told us that each time Peter and Judy spoke to each other, they finished their communication with, “Do you know what I said? Do you understand what I mean?”

Peggy wisely observed that all marriages would be better if we all asked these questions when speaking to our spouses! Maybe we all should say those things to our friends, our children, our co-workers – and our other-language friends.

Let us be careful in our use of our own speech, patient in our reception of other people’s word usage and diligent in trying to understand the true meaning of God’s words.

--Lynda Shenefield