These words appear in one of my favorite songs, "O Sacred Head". The verse says, "What language shall I borrow, to thank Thee dearest Friend?" Indeed, what language is adequate to thank our Lord Jesus for His dying on the cross for us, dying because we sin? What words are adequate to express the fullness of our appreciation for our Savior? There are none. Yet, we must try.

          There is a term: "lingua franca". It means a hybrid language, a language made up of other languages, by which people of different languages can communicate. If our language is inadequate to thank Jesus, our dearest Friend, then we must find one that will. Or, at least, we must find some way of thanking God and His Son, and communicating with them.

          Christians have one great help in communicating with God when we don’t know what to say to Him. Our help is the Holy Spirit. Paul writes in Rom. 8:26, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." What a blessing and comfort! God, the Holy Spirit, speaks to God, the Father, for us in ways we cannot, saying things we do not know how to say. Aren’t there many times when we don’t know what to say to God, or there is something we desperately want to say to Him, but we just don’t know how to begin to say it? What a loving God who will help us in such a way!

          The song asks, "what language shall I borrow," but while we may not be able to borrow another language, we can borrow other’s words. For example, we can borrow the words of David from the Psalms, or any other Bible writer who uses words in a beautiful, expressive way to communicate with God. How many of us could think of such words as, "As a deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs for You"? But, of course, we must never think that the beauty of our language alone could impress God. Jesus warned against praying many words thinking that we will be heard simply because we are wordy. No, our words to God must be sincere, from a heart that is longing for God and truly wanting to communicate with God. But if we can use the words of the psalmist or others in the Bible in a sincere way, then these words can be very helpful in saying what we could not think to say otherwise.

          There is another language we use to speak to God and that is the language of our songs. We "speak to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord" (Eph. 5:19). In our songs of worship we are using the words of a song writer as well as his or her music, but the words must become our words and our music to the Lord. When we sing from our heart, we may be borrowing the language of a composer or song writer, but the meaning becomes ours and the Lord accepts that.

          But the most important part of all of this is that we must be speaking to the Lord. We must attempt to communicate with Him, now matter how inadequate we may feel in doing it. That doesn’t matter. David wrote, "Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord" (Psm. 139:4). God knows what is in our heart, but He wants us to do our best to communicate it to Him. When we simply don’t know the words, and we can’t find borrowed words that say what we want to say, then God steps in and His Holy Spirit helps us in this weakness. But if we are not even trying to communicate, whether in prayer or in song, then there is nothing for God to hear from us. How sad for us!

          Find the words. Borrow a language. But speak to our Father.

-- Wayne Sharp