Love overcomes any language barrier

In Bible study we are reading a short book called The Greatest Thing in the WORLD: Walking in Love by Henry Drummond. As we were going through some of it this evening, this portion from page 14 stuck out to me:

 Then Paul contrasts it [love] with sacrifice and martyrdom: "If I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing." Missionaries can take nothing greater to the heathen world than the impress and reflection of the Love of God upon their own character. That is the universal language. It will take them years to speak in Chinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day they land, that language of Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence.

This reminds me of when I was in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in June of 2007. I was with our youth group on a missions trip and during one of the VBS outreaches I tried to communicate with a young girl. She was probably not older than 7, and asked her almost every question I could think of in Spanish, but she didn't seem to understand me. I'm not fluent in Spanish, but I know a decent amount. However, although we tried for at least 10-15 minutes, we could not seem to understand each other. The last thing that came to my mind were the words "un abrazo". So, I asked the girl, "Un abrazo?" She smiled and opened her arms. She understood. I asked her, "A hug?" and she understood.

Our God is so cool. The love of our King through us is amazing; it crosses barriers that cannot otherwise be crossed.

(And just to remind y'all: we're all missionaries--even in our own homes, neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces.)