A Heavenly Translator
By Pam Scott, Washington Conference associate treasurer & risk manager
ChatGPT is an incredible tool. I can type out my thoughts — raw, rambling, or rushed — and it returns them polished, professional, and friendly. It makes me sound better than I really am.
Where I might be too blunt, it smooths the edges. Where I forget key facts, it fills in the blanks. I’ve caught myself thinking more than once, “Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a ChatGPT device wired to my mouth?” Something that could instantly translate my unfiltered thoughts into something gracious, wise, and uplifting — before I say the wrong thing out loud.
But then it hit me: I already have something like that. Someone.
Romans 8:26–28 (MSG) says:
"Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans... That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good."
God’s Spirit does more than polish our words — He translates our hearts. When we don’t know what to pray, when all we can muster is a sigh or a confused thought, the Holy Spirit communicates on our behalf with wisdom and compassion. He understands what we’re really trying to say, even when we don’t.
Unlike artificial intelligence, the Holy Spirit isn’t just guessing based on patterns — He knows us, even better than we know ourselves.
He understands our motives, our struggles, our hopes, and our hurts. And He isn’t just translating our words to God — He’s also shaping our hearts so our lives can reflect God’s goodness.
So, while it might be nice to have a real-time translator for everyday conversations, we already have the ultimate divine Communicator working on our behalf. And that’s far better than sounding polished — it’s being transformed by love into something eternally good.