A few years ago, we had one of those rare occasions:  we had all our children together in the same place at the same time. We look forward to those times. But at one point, I was sitting in the room with two of my daughters and their husbands, and each of us was using either a cell phone or tablet or laptop. My wife came in the room and pointed out that we could do that anytime – we should be talking to each other! So that is what we did.

Later during that visit, my youngest daughter told me what she had been doing before my wife told us all to stop using our electronic devices. She introduced me to an app used for learning languages. She was using it to refresh herself on the German she had studied in High School.

Since Cheryl and I have a couple of trips to Germany coming up in the next year, I have been working on relearning German with a newer app on my phone. I had also studied German in High School and college. In fact, I have studied five languages in my life other than English: Latin, German, Greek, Hebrew and Spanish. But for now, my focus is on refreshing my German to the point where I will not feel completely helpless while in that country. I enjoy taking a little time each day to once again challenge myself with another language. While I remember some vocabulary and sentence structure, some of it is being learned all over again. Trying to remember gender and case gives me the most trouble.

My point in bringing this up is a truth that I rediscovered through this exercise: translation is a difficult thing. There is not always a word for word translation from one language to another. In fact, I would say that is seldom the case. There are all kinds of variables and context clues you have to take into account to be sure you get an accurate translation. Expressing yourself clearly is not as easy as we would like it to be. And the only way to get better at translation is to do it!

I think this is just as true in our lives as followers of Jesus. When we interact with those who have not been led to faith in Jesus Christ, there is a translation problem. We may be speaking the same English language, but we won’t always understand each other. It is hard for those who have faith in Jesus to understand what is going on in the lives of those who do not have that faith, which means we don’t always understand what they say to us. And when we speak about God’s mercy and forgiveness, those who don’t know that Jesus paid for the sins of the world will not understand what we are talking about. Our challenge is to speak in a way others will understand.

In order to be understood, we need to be clear and precise. It also helps to keep it simple. Being a follower of Jesus does not mean we have all the answers or that we have everything figured out. It does mean that we have experienced God’s love in a personal way. We know who Jesus is and that He did what only He could do: He took our punishment when He died and rose in victory over death. He gives those things to us as a gift. We get that gift when we believe in Him.

So keep it simple and stick to the basics. As you interact with people, let them know that Jesus made a difference in your life, and He wants to do that for them, too.

Another thing to remember is what my wife suggested: we need to talk to each other. Don’t be afraid to have a conversation with someone. It might take some doing, but most of the time you will find it is well worth the effort.