Teach Me

The elementary school years were not easy for me.  I struggled to pay attention and found sitting in a chair for hours painfully uncomfortable.  I often wondered if my problem was due to my superior academic abilities and the teacher was teaching far below my brilliance.    

Hey, it's possible. FINE! I may have been of the "late bloomer" persuasion.  

Due to my remedial learner ways, there have been plenty of life lessons that required repeating.  For example...the 4th grade.  Oh the shame!

I really was an exceptionally good teenager and ended up in the National Honor Society, but oh those elementary years.  Wow-those years were another story all together! The skipping school in the 1st and 2nd grades.  Most first graders would have learned their lesson but not me.  I was a repeat offender.  There was the black crayon on the hardwood floors, the stealing and lying.  I was a bit of a scraper as well.  The mischievous things I did are far too numerous to mention in a short devotional.  I was most certainly a slow learner.  

I wish I could say that those days are far behind me, but spiritually speaking I'm still a bit of a slow learner.  Recently, while having my quite time I wrote this prayer in my journal.  

"Thank you Lord for lessons both great and small, you are forever teaching me your ways. I pray I'll be a quick learner."

Sometimes I think my pen writes ahead of my brain, and I have no idea how it does that.

As sincere as my prayer was, I know I'm not alone in the the slow learner's class.  You may not have repeated a whole year of school, but I'm guessing that you have had to start over again because you didn't learn a lesson the first time.  

My go-to Bible character for slow learning is King David.  When the prophet Samuel comes to confront the King about his sin with Bathsheba, David is incensed with the "sheep stealing" culprit in Samuel's story. King David is livid, until Samuel says, "Thou art the man."  In Psalm 51, David pleads for the Lord to forgive him for his "sheep stealing" ways.  Then in Psalm 86:11 (NET) he prays this prayer. 

O Lord, teach me how you want me to live!

Then I will obey your commands.

Make me wholeheartedly committed to you!

King David made some big blunders but he also did some stuff right.  In Acts 13:22 (GW) he was remembered by God like this...‘I have found that David, son of Jesse, is a man after my own heart...'  

Being teachable is an awesome trait, even for we who are slow learners.

"Thank you Lord for lessons both great and small, you are forever teaching me your ways. I pray I'll be a quick learner."