Speak English!

Press 1 for English. Press 2 for Spanish.

Nothing chaps my husband more than that simple message. His pretense is that if you're in America, assume it's English! I tend to agree with him. When we go to Paris, no one asks us to press 1 for French and 2 for English. When we're in Guatemala, everything is in Spanish (granted, there's not a lot of pressing of technological buttons in the squalor of poverty). When we're in the Bahamas, we don't get a choice: King's English or Southern?

I was thinking about why we are so protective of our cultures. Why is it so important to "preserve our heritage"? And then God spoke to my heart and told me something I'd never thought of before. English is a temporary language. So is French. So is Spanish.

When we get to heaven, we will forever live in a blended community. I assume we'll have a spiritual language that everyone will be able to understand. We'll be able to communicate with people of every nation and we'll all sing praises together. We'll all understand each other.

The point is, I think it's time to give up our rights to our heritage and culture. It's passing away. It has no long-term significance. It's time to focus on Jesus' prayer concept: "on earth as it is in heaven". We need to be more kingdom-minded in dreaming about a culture where no one is better than anyone else and everyone is precious in the sight of God.

We need to think about what community transformation really looks like. I suspect it will look a lot more like heaven.