“9 But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12: 9-10
I often pray for the Lord to make more out of my language lessons than progress in my understanding of Albanian language. So, why would I be surprised when he answers that prayer with an opportunity to speak truth?
Recently, I was at a language helper’s house for a lesson. I knew she came from a Muslim background, but she also always comes to church, shares with me how much she enjoys it, and we often talk about the Lord. During our lesson, we were reviewing verbs and one was the verb “to pray.” She was giving me examples of using the verb. The conversation went like this:
Her: I am Muslim. You are a Christian.
Me: *thinking that I am not sure where the conversation is going but praying that God helps me understand and discern how to handle it.*
Her: Muslims and Christians are different, but we all pray to the same God.
Here is when she went on to say this a few times and talk about the God we pray to and sing to in church is the same as the God that Muslims are speaking to when they pray.
A few things were going through my mind at this point:
It’s quite miraculous that I can understand everything she is saying and that the Lord would provide an opportunity for spiritual conversation in my language lesson.
Do I say anything? This would be a hard conversation to enter into in English, and here we are already talking about it in Albanian. Do I act like I am not understanding her (honestly a thought I had)?
Lord, help me figure out a truth simple enough that I can say accurately in Albanian and then let me be content with what I can do.
And He provided. I was able to share with her that there certainly is only one God, but that the God that you read about in the Quran is not the same God you read about in the Bible. A small start to what I pray are more moments of sharing the Gospel with her and the hope found in the one true God (either through me and/or through other believers around her).
These verses in 2 Corinthians speak to the joy that is found in resting in the power of the Lord and knowing that He is the one that changes hearts and minds and the reach of the Gospel is not dependent on me or my language abilities, and that I can have peace in just doing the next thing that is reflective of His love and truth.
This idea of being content with my weaknesses and the Lord revealing to me more of those and my insecurities has been present my whole time overseas, and it is challenging, but it is also comforting being able to work through all of these things with the Lord and knowing He is near.