Putting into Deep Waters

We are students for more of our lives than we are teachers because we learn more than we teach. Before we can teach we must learn even more about the subject we are going to teach than we normally would learn if we were seeking to be taught about that subject.

So then, teaching makes us a more intense learner. Even so, if we are not expecting to learn and somebody is trying to teach us something, it will be experienced more deeply, and becomes a greater revelation to us when we finally realize that we have been taught something that we discovered is meaningful to us. Thus, the lesson that was learned was more profound than it would have been if it had been gained after a quest for an answer to our questions.

Think about the times that you have been taught something that was valuable to you in an unexpected way, and so much so that it made a lasting impression upon you. It was so burned into your brain and heart that you have never forgotten it. It may also have been the source of something that has changed the way that you look at the world, or at least allowed you access to a truth that you were not aware that you wanted to know of its treasures.

Many valuable truths have been learned as part of a journey that we take, or a goal that is being achieved, or a job that we are tasked to do. When I was a teenager I was part of a team that was tasked to clear property for a new church building that was to be built. That property had numerous trees and large shrubs on it that needed to be dug up and removed. The team I was on started in the earliest part of the day and it lasted for several days. I was on the tree removal detail. I worked to cut up the tree trunks into smaller more manageable sections so they could be removed after being cut down. I used a large ax to cut up the trees that were of a medium to smaller diameter and then the larger trunks were cut up with chainsaws.

As I worked, I soon found out that after my initial strong-arm tactics to cut up the trees, my brute strength was no match for the hardness of the mighty medium to smaller tree trunks. I became discouraged as my strength waned and as a result, I tired too quickly to get the job done efficiently. I saw that the other more experienced ax cutters had a sharpening tool that they used periodically on their axes and used an ax chopping technique that was much more effective for cutting the tree trunks speedily.

I learned, unexpectedly by way of my failure to get the job done quickly, to sharpen my ax sufficiently before any woodchopping work, and to use the best technique for chopping trees to make my job shorter and use less strength and energy to complete it. My deep truth was that my preparation for a job, and knowledge learned from others who have experience doing that job, is worth more than my talent and confidence alone to get it done.

In our Bible reading for Sunday from Luke 5:1-11, it described an account of Jesus teaching people in a boat on a lake about God's love. He saw a group of men who made their living fishing also in a boat on the lake. But Jesus knew that they needed to learn a deeper lesson that would fundamentally change their lives forever if they could learn it in a very unexpected way while doing their job. Find out what those men learned and pray about what God is teaching you unexpectedly while you do your job or any normal task.