The Joy of Learning

“If Jesus saved us, why do we have to go to school?”

“What?” I adjusted the rearview mirror to glance at the boy in the backseat.

“If Jesus saved us, why do we have to go to school?”

Yep. That’s what I thought he said.

My eight-year-old grandson would rather stay home and play with dinosaurs than spend the day in a classroom.

Maybe you felt like school was a waste of time, too?

We begin learning the day we step into the world.

We learn about our interaction with the world the day we go to kindergarten. And we enter a different world when we join the workforce. We are all life-long learners, but not everyone is still growing from what they learn. What separates the learners from the sluggish?

My friend, Ann Smith, is a life-long learner. She is a student of people and says there is always something new to be gained by having a curious mind. Ann would know—she’s had one hundred years to study those around her and across the globe. She’s been a coal miner, missionary to Japan, director of the missions’ board, and caregiver for her husband. She’s spoken to Sunday school classes and to full auditoriums at conventions. She’s shared the love of Jesus in Buddhist temples and at her kitchen table. Ann is a student who knows how to ask good questions.

Exercise:

Take out pen and paper and jot down your thoughts in response to some queries Ann makes in her newly released book, “What If?”

• What if the familiar, even if it’s bad, becomes so comfortable that I find it difficult to let go and embrace change and uncertainty? pp. 16-17
• What if harvesting my failures opens the door for increasing richness and wisdom? pp.22-23
• What if I could see everything that comes into my life as the raw material for growth? pp. 72-72
• What if I really believed every person has something to teach me? pp.86-87
• What if I faced my pain, loss, and grief by asking God to make them fruitful? pp. 174-175

Ann says if we live with expectancy, then we’ve learned the secret to life. She prays daily,

“Lord, give us challenges to keep growing and joy to keep us getting up in the morning.”

How will you learn to live with expectancy?

* What If? 125 Questions to Discover More about Life and Faith by Ann Espey Smit

Over 140 of Sally Ferguson’s devotionals have been published in Pathways to God (Warner Press). She’s also written for Light From The Word, Chautauqua Mirror, Just Between Us, Adult Span Curriculum, Thriving Family, Upgrade with Dawn and ezinearticles.com. Prose Contest Winner at 2017 Greater Philly Christian Writers Conference.

Sally loves organizing retreats and seeing relationships blossom in time away from the daily routine. Her ebook, How to Plan a Women’s Retreat is available on Amazon.

Sally Ferguson lives in the beautiful countryside of Jamestown, NY with her husband and her dad.

Visit Sally’s blog at sallyferguson.net