To Speak Truth

I noticed something today. Words do a bad job capturing truth (or maybe just my words do). I spend every week using words to try to convince people of what I know to be true, but what makes preaching hard isn't finding the truth, it's finding the words that convey that truth. When I try to get someone around me to see what I see and they can't I usually just end up sounding awkward and repeating myself a lot (kinda like I do when I blog). It's funny, after all these years preparing sermons and preaching you'd think I'd be better at using words, yet they still fail me.

Maybe, though, words can't perfectly convey truth, only give us a taste of it. Anyone who has tried to explain what they think heaven is like can probably understand what I'm trying to say, your heart has an idea, but your mind can't form the words to explain it. There are so many things you can see or feel, but can never seem to say.

You might be asking, "What about Scripture, are the words of God imperfect?" Yes and no. God's Word is perfect, yet scripture is God's Word in human words. Think about John 3:16. God so loved the world that He gave His only son is true, but those words can't even begin to capture the truth of what they are saying. That is why ever since God has started speaking to people he has used other people to explain His Words, this is what every pastor who speaks is called to do, explain God's Words by using their own. This is a crazy thought, imperfect men and women using imperfect words to explain not quite perfect words that are trying to explain perfection.

So this is the job I find myself in, trying to explain what I know and never getting it quite right. When it comes to explaining the perfect, the only thing I can do is keep using my imperfect words over and over again in the hopes that through repetition and brief glances people will start to see what I see and start to know what I know. It's how I learned what is true...it's how I'm still learning. Maybe when we get to heaven the tongues of angels will be adequate enough to allow me to say the things I want to say, but until then this will have to do.

Okay, I think I've been deep enough for one week. Time to get back to making lists about how sexy I think am.