Last week, I translated a speech for a friend of mine and then interpreted the speech in a live situation. I am definitely not the best translator or interpreter that I know, and I felt like a bit of a fraud standing in front of everyone and trying to translate something that was important to me.

In some ways, the process of translating the speech reminded me of when I first started playing the piano on Sundays. I’ve played the piano for years, but I have never been good at improvising. In fact, that has always been something that terrified me. So when my friend sent me the lyrics to the song with just some basic chords to go along with the words and a recording of the song, I was terrified. How am I supposed to be able to play this??? I thought. How does anyone play something like this?

Even though I was familiar with the chords, I had no idea how to go about translating what I knew about chords into something that sounded good to listen to or something that anyone could sing along with. I spent hours watching YouTube videos of people teaching me how to play the songs. I made mistakes. I still don’t feel like I’m very good at improvising songs on the piano, but I have learned enough to enjoy playing and I no longer have to spend hours practicing the songs. I also don’t freak out when I see the lyrics and chord sheets. In fact, I’m comfortable with them.

When we start learning something, we’re not supposed to be good at it. No one is good at something immediately. Or even if we are good at certain things, we will still struggle and make mistakes at times.

As I spent hours translating that speech line by line, checking myself with Google translate, I started to wonder if maybe the point is not to be the best. Maybe God is delighted by what we do even when we are not the best. Maybe He is delighted by the struggles and the attempts that we lay at His feet just like I am delighted when a child hands me a scribbled picture that he or she drew especially for me.

Maybe God is delighted by our scribbles if those scribbles are completed in His power and for His glory.

I spent a lot of time praying as I translated that speech. I know that my language skills are far from excellent. I learned several new words as I was translating, but the most frustrating sentences were the ones where I knew all the characters and their meanings, but I still didn’t get the meaning of the sentence. A couple times Google translate helped, and a couple of times I asked the speaker for guidance.

Since I struggled with the translation so much, I knew how desperately I needed God’s help. Before I translated the speech, I felt my stomach twisting into knots. What if he goes off script and I can’t understand what he’s saying? I wondered. I kept praying.

When I stood at the front of the audience, I found the members of the audience that needed the English translation and focused on them. Their smiles and nods gave me courage. And I know God was helping me also.

The speaker went off-script more than I expected. A couple times I lost the flow of what he was saying and stumbled. As I floundered for words, I filled in the sentence with something that I felt like would be similar to what he said. Once or twice I went ahead of him. Once I completely lost what he had said and had to ask him to repeat it. He translated it for himself into English, and then we moved on.

I tell you these things to let you know that I was far from perfect in my interpreting. I struggled. I floundered. But I did it. I know that God was helping me, and that’s the only way I could have done it.

Maybe it’s ok to do things before we feel ready.

That being said, I don’t want to stay at this level. I think that floundering is a part of growth, but I don’t want to keep floundering if I translate again.

I need this reminder for my piano playing and for my translating/interpreting skills. In Exodus 31:2-5, we can read God’s words to Moses: “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.”

God gave this man special skills to make beautiful things for God. God delights in beauty and skillful work, and I want to make sure that the things I am offering to God are beautiful and excellent.

Sometimes I find myself thinking, It’s ok, I can play the piano well enough. I don’t need to keep learning as much. But I know that I am far from where I could be. I am far from perfection. I want to keep striving for excellence, not being satisfied with my humble drawings, just like an artist shouldn’t be satisfied when all they can offer is a simple scribbled drawing.


Is there anything in your life that you want to improve? Is there something in your life that you want to do, but you don’t feel qualified? Do you just need to get those scribbles out?

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this!