Practicing the Lessons

Practicing the lessons. What does that mean, anyway?

Growing up is always a real challenge, mainly because there is this expectation that you should actually start practicing in your life the things you have been taught. Somehow there is this unspoken understanding that having ‘heard’ something you will then begin doing it!

For instance, I can remember when mom told me it was time for me to start making my bed for myself each morning before I went to school. For years mom had done that task and I really felt no compulsion to take it up for myself, but she was insistent. Mom did take the time to give me clear instruction on how to smooth out the bottom sheet and tuck in the corners on the top sheet so it hung neatly on the sides of the bed. She showed me how to pull the bedspread up evenly and neatly over the pillows after they had been ‘fluffed’ following the night of sleep. She even spent the next few weeks practicing with me as I did more and more of it by myself under her watchful and correcting eye. Then came the day she didn’t come into my room, but instead just reminded me that my bed must be made before I left for school. From that day on she expected me to accomplish the task I had heard her teach me. Even after I got married, Joyce faithfully took over that duty of expecting me to do what I had learned so well from mom!

We have discovered how God values generosity as the attitude of our heart and life as we learn to live in His kingdom. In addition, God values communication and discipline as well. Like mom, the Lord faithfully and patiently speaks to us, teaching and correcting our lives as He walks beside us through the Holy Spirit. His lessons have to do with the right way of living in a world that has been distorted and soiled by sin. As we learn His ‘rightness,’ Jesus then expects us to discipline our lives to actually do what He has shown us! Real love, real obedience, real ministry, etc., are the results of God speaking and our truly hearing what He has said.