What is gobbledygook?

For some unknown reason I woke up this morning with the word "Gobbledygook"
on my mind. Perhaps because I was dealing with lots of detailed, legal type
reading yesterday. Now, I know how the word is used and what it means in our
American culture, but my curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to know
more about the word, so I did some checking as to how the word came into
being.

It seems that on "May 21, 1944 by Maury Maverick, a congressman from Texas
was the originator. His comments, recorded in the New York Times Magazine,
were made when Maverick was the Democratic chairman of the US Congress
Smaller War Plants Committee. He was being critical of the obscure language
used by other committee members. The allusion was to a turkey, "always
gobbledy gobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity". (Wikipedia)

Basically, Gobbledygook is any comment that is hard to understand or perhaps
uses phrases twisting language to make it difficult to understand what the
writer or speaker is really saying. Some might use the word
"incomprehensible" to describe this; however I like the sound of the word
"Gobbledygook".

In my "professional" opinion, I believe at times it is possible for people's
lives to become gobbledygook. There are times when our lives become so mixed
up, so out of control, so unmanageable that to figure out what is necessary
in life becomes gobbledygook (or incomprehensible to us). We really don't
know where to go, what to do next, how to solve the overwhelming problems we
face.

I in no way want to make it sound like I have no problems or that I believe
that all problems are easily solved. However I really do believe that with
the right background and foundation our problems can be solved "more"
easily.

I really believe that when Jesus says in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all of
you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest," he
means what he says. He does not say that he will make the problem go away,
but in him we have hope of something that goes beyond the problem.

You see that is the answer to overcoming the gobbledygook that our lives
sometime become. It is not expecting that the problems will all magically be
taken away, but in knowing that our life consists of more than what is going
on in it at this instant. If we have that hope in Christ, then we can deal
with the present and temporary messes our lives sometimes become.

There is a passage of scripture I have often used at funerals, which speaks
of our hope. Paul begins in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, "But I would not have you
to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow
not, even as others which have no hope." Then he goes ahead and tells of our
resurrection and eternal life with God. It is when we feel that we have "no
hope" that or life becomes gobbledygook or "incomprehensible" to us. We
can't see any answer to the problems we face. Here is the problem as
described by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:4. He says: "Satan, who is the god of
this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are
unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand
this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God."

Which one are you seeing in your life?

Russ Lawson