Learning is Difficult

Learning is Difficult

I learned something new today. What it is doesn't matter. Was it beneficial? Yes. Am I glad I learned it? Of course I am. Do I want to put forth the effort to learn something else right now? NO. Why? I wonder? It's because learning is difficult. How is this the case, and in what way might one say that learning is difficult? Please let me explain. First, you have to acknowledge that you are ignorant. (Not stupid or dumb, just ignorant). Now, I don't have any problem understanding others as ignorant (without knowledge), in fact, there are times that I prefer to understand a situation resulting from the "lack of knowledge". In fact it was Hosea who said "My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6). Learning starts there though….like recovery, we have to admit that we have a problem. This is difficult for most of us. Next, we have to want to find a solution. Oh yes many are stuck here. They don't want a solution. Some call it drive, others might think of it as goal-oriented. Whatever your label, you have to "want to" fix it. I don't know the song, but I remember the faculty meeting I was in where a music professor was trying to introduce a song and, since it was written at the turn of the century during the growth of the Pentecostal movement, there was a phrase he didn't understand: "Since I got my 1, 2 fixed"…..one of the other professors was amused at this and said, "that would be "Want to" ….Ohhhhhh! "That makes more sense: "Since I got my "want to" fixed. True that. Here is where learning goes to the next level. First we've admitted we're ignorant, then we get our "want to" fixed, then, well, then it's time to find the answer. Christians can get happy at this point. The biblical language about "seeking" is wonderful (Proverbs 8:17, Jeremiah 29:13, Luke 12:31, Luke 19:10, Colossians 3:1, Hebrews 11:6). It's in the changing of the "want to" and the "seeking" where all the work is. Then finally there is the effort to save it, understand it, and do it. Many times that's fun when the "application" takes place. This is what Milton Gregory meant when he described the powerful tool of "association"…. "the Unknown Must be Explicable in Terms of the Known". Do I intend to learn something else soon? Yes. I'll embrace and face the fact that difficulty is often the pathway to success. In learning, in growing, in life.