A Teachable Heart

Good morning, friends! As I write this, I am sitting at my desk where the sunshine is pouring in the windows and reflecting off the beautiful snow. Yes...snow!! We received a few inches of it on Monday afternoon and night, and since it is not something this area is accustomed to, life has slowed down around here a little the past couple days. I am enjoying the chance to stay home and get caught up on some home organization, as well as my reading and studying. We also have had the opportunity to Skype and chat with our children and our grandchildren. One of the joys of having grandchildren is seeing them learn new things all the time. Our oldest granddaughter, at age 6, is becoming a proficient reader in addition to learning to play the piano and completing her first school project. Our youngest granddaughter, age 8 months, is learning to crawl. And at all the ages in between, we have grandchildren learning everything from walking and saying new words to coloring in the lines and obeying their parents and teachers.

I find myself these days being more of a teacher than a learner. However, I like to think that at my age of fifty-something, I can still learn new things. I enjoy challenges and acquiring new skills. But most of all, I am so grateful that even after being a Christian for over 50 years now, that God still teaches me new things about Himself and myself all the time.

The Bible is filled with verses about God teaching us. The Psalms alone have at least 25 verses where the Psalmist is asking God to teach him. One of them is Psalm 143:10 - "Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou are my God, thy spirit is good. Lead me into the land of uprightness." But as I read and meditate on these verses, it leads me to ask - "Am I teachable?' Or do I think that I know it all? We would say, "No, of course not!" But many times our actions prove otherwise.

In my reading, I came across Isaiah 48:17 and 18. "Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord thy God which teaches thee to profit, which leadeth thee in the way that thou shouldest go. O that thou had hearkened to my commandments! Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea!" Wow. God says first of all that He teaches us for our profit. It is for our growth and our benefit and our happiness that He teaches us and leads us. The problem comes when we fail to hearken to His teaching. "Hearken" means to listen, to heed, and to follow. When we don't listen or heed to God's lessons He is teaching us, then sometimes we have to learn things the hard way. The extent to which we listen and follow determines the depth of our contentment. God says if only His people had hearkened to His teaching them in the first place, He had good things in store for them. Their peace would have been like a river - gentle, flowing, and rarely disturbed. Their righteousness, or freedom from sin as a result of obedience, would have been as the ocean - deep and not affected by the rains or the seasons.

Dear ones, do you have a teachable spirit? Do you ask God to teach you His ways, and then determine to follow them? Do you practice what he teaches you? When we learn new insights or skills, we need to practice them so that they really become ingrained in us. God is a faithful teacher. What He needs us to be are willing students.

Love,
Kathi