Learning Hebrew just got hard.  For the first two weeks of the semester the alphabet and vowels were flowing from my tongue like hymns sung by angels (Ok that isn’t true but at least I knew them).  Suddenly the multiple rules about word forms reached out and grabbed my confidence and ripped it in half like the Power Team rips phone books.  I had a feeling this would happen.  Learning the Hebrew language is much like learning a lot of things.  For me over the last few years I have ‘learned’ to play tennis, fly fish, and play Guitar Hero.  In each of these cases it has been the same; in the beginning things are exciting as I have learned the basics of something new.  Then after working on those basics it quickly becomes apparent that in order to make great strides of improvement I will need to work much harder.  I can serve a tennis ball one way but never figured out how to play at the net.  I can cast a fly one way but never figured out how to roll cast.  I can play songs on intermediate but once that orange button pops up in Guitar Hero I am done for.  I hit a ceiling and breaking through it isn’t easy.  Apparently, learning a new language is just as difficult and this is usually where I decide that I know enough and try something new without refining my skills.

In the past I have not been a great ‘finisher’.  In the NBA players like Kobe get paid big bucks not because they are great every second of every game but because they are great in the last ten seconds of the game when the team needs one shot that will be the deciding factor between winning and losing.  Learning Hebrew isn’t about winning and losing but it is about persevering and putting in effort up until the end goal is met.  I don’t want to settle for knowing a little Hebrew, I want to know as much as possible so as to become fluent.  How does this relate to the season of Lent?  I think what God is trying to tell me is this: just like learning the Hebrew language you need to learn my language, how I speak in your life.  And to do that it is going to take practice, patience and effort.  Don’t settle for knowing just enough to get by but instead become fluent in God.

Advertisement