Lost in Translation

"This is next are acts. Calling to inform you. That your order 1. 822. 5. For. 3. 5. When she had gone. Tuesday. this plenty 8. And should arrive within side. Business days or sooner. If you chose to exit out your order. Thank you from next Iraq's. Goodbye."

That is a message that we received today on our voice mail. Well, actually that is the message as translated by Vonage, our VoIP phone company (at least until Verizon shuts it down). Vonage has this neat feature that takes voice mail and translates it to text and emails it to you. That way you have the message you missed at home sent straight to you wherever you are.

So what is the above gobblely-gook? This is a computer-generated message sent to a computer-based voice mail interpreted by a computer algorithm with no human interaction at all. Very helpful, isn’t it? The message, whatever it is, is lost in translation. Don’t computers make our lives so much easier?

Lost in translation. I wonder if that is what happens with our Christian lives among our non-Christian friends and co-workers.. How often is there a 'lost in translation" disconnect between what we say we believe and how we actually live. We speak of a “peace that passes understanding.” What others see in our lives is the same full-bore, flat-out rat race dominating our life just as it dominates theirs. We may talk about faith in a God that controls the world while what they see in us may be the same fretting, fuming and fussing over life that would be there if God were NOT in control.

Does the gospel lose something in translation between what God calls us to be and what others see? Peter says, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God” (1 Peter 2:12). Boy, talk about a verse that is easier to quote than to live! But then, most Bible verses are that way. How much of the gospel is lost in translation by the way we live it… or don’t live it?