Most people know me as an ESL teacher, which is English as a Second Language. I am also a linguist who understands the process of learning a foreign language and one who has acquired English as a second language, so every time I read the verse in Acts about apostles speaking in different languages, I chuckle to myself. Here were all these foreigners visiting Jerusalem for the day of Pentecost and hearing their own languages spoken all around them: the people who spoke these foreign languages were Galileans! Most of the onlookers were dumbfounded, but some mocked them and blurted out “They have had too much wine” (Acts 2:13 NIV).

Seriously? I’m curious if any of these mockers had ever tried to learn a second language. I promise you it does not happen through drinking! This shows me what lengths we will go to justify something that is utterly miraculous. Or were they calling people who claimed to hear their own languages spoken drunk? I feel bad for Peter, who had to say that it was “only nine in the morning,” too early to be drinking.

How many times do we interpret miracles around us as coincidences? I think of a friend and receive a message from her or run into her. Ah, it is just a coincidence. If we believe Jesus holds all things together and is in charge of all the details of our lives, we cannot shrug off these as chance or freak incidents.

I like the term someone came up with: God-incidence!

So next time something happens that knocks your socks off, call it not a coincidence but a God-incidence. He is the One orchestrating everything to the smallest detail.

God bless you and your loved ones!

Meryem Kennedy