Using the limitedness of our language

"Human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars" (Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary).

Who has ever been able to empty the contents of his heart to his lover? And similarly, in sorrow, "The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy" (Proverbs 14:10).

Yet God, who is infinitely wise and for whom "nothing is impossible" (Luke 1:37), chose human speech as the vehicle of communication to us. Was He grasping at straws? Was He working with a handicap? A blunt instrument? Had He miscalculated? Is He, as Woody Allen put it, "an underachiever"?

But God is the one whose power is made perfect in weakness. I must assume, then, that He uses the very "weakness" or limitedness of our language to achieve a purpose that would not have been achieved by other means. After all, "This God- his way is perfect" (Psalm 18:30).

The Infinite speaks to the finite of the fount of our salvation, sometimes calling it "grace," at other times "love," or "mercy." He commands "faith," but elsewhere will call it "obedience." Words like "hope" and "trust" overlap in meaning. His Spirit produces the fruit of "love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, kindness, and self-control," but we have the sneaking suspicion that under the surface they converge. Every commandment is an alternate doorway to a deeper knowledge of Christ.

A variegation of approach to Reality is somehow the best way to communicate it. We have as yet no idea of all the reasons why this is so. It may be something about the Trinity. But human speech is like a cracked tin kettle on which we hammer out tunes that, by the Spirit of God, do move the stars.