Issue 240
Based on Deuteronomy 11:16-21
The game of life is to learn. From the first breath of a newborn, the challenge is to learn to feed, to move, to speak and to become independent. You will have heard about lifelong learning, learning organisations, or learning and development plans. You may be a trainer, a teacher, a tutor or a coach, and your business is learning. Whoever you are, as you read this piece, you are in the learning business. If you build, you will need to learn the skills. If you are in farming, finance, healthcare or IT, you will need to learn.
Learning, like so many other aspects of life, takes place on a variety of levels. Basic survival skills (such as shopping, cooking, dressing and cleaning) are essential (they have largely replaced hunting, gathering, fighting for most of us!). Then you need your specialist skills for whatever your chosen path.
There is however, another set of skills or a body of knowledge and wisdom, which will need to be acquired. It is one thing to work – another to work wisely and yet another to work spiritually. There are less tangible but equally real insights which we need if we are to make it through life and even death.
This learning has to do with the words of God; his ways, his methods, his values and his purposes come to us in his words. His advice and that of Moses, contained in Jesus’ all-time favourite book was, not to create great universities or centres of learning, but to walk along the mentoring road. God’s words are to be taught and explained,”’as you walk along the road with your children”. They are to be woven into everyday life. The range of learning opportunities includes mealtimes, rest times and walks.
So who are you walking with? Is someone walking with you? Who talks and walks with you about the words of God, and who do you mentor?
If you have children, you must definitely walk and talk with them about the words of God. You must share your highs and lows, your insights, your understanding of biblical truth, and your determination to live it out.
It might be that you are the one to walk with some (probably younger) adult who just needs to hear from you the experiences you have gained by walking on theroad a bit longer than they have.
You will certainly benefit from finding a spiritual director who will show you the words of God for yourself.
If Moses knew what he was talking about, the mentoring road is a place where life lessons are learnt, and life spans are increased.
Learn well.
Deuteronomy 11:16-21
16 Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. 17 Then the LORD’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you. 18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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