A Willingness and Love for Learning

     She was a girl of ten or eleven, the daughter of an old friend of my dad's.  I was struggling to keep up the morale because she was VERY shy.  So, I asked a common question that I figured would get a good conversation going.
     "Do you like school?"
     "No."
     Though I suppose it wasn't an altogether abnormal answer, I tried to keep going.  "What don't you like about it?"
     Without hesitation she replied "the learning part."  It was here that I held back.  How sad!  I thought inwardly.  She doesn't like to learn!
     Ever since that occurrence a couple of years ago, I've contemplated quite a bit about what it really means to have a willingness to learn, and a love for it too.
     Have you ever watched a baby who was just finding their legs?  They teeter around with such excitement and apprehension all at the same time.  Ever observed a toddler discovering the first spring daffodil, or a little child reading their first word?  We can gather so much from children, if we just pay attention.  For them, just seeing their first rainbow or holding a puppy can be such an indescribable thrill!  They absorb all that they can manage from their surroundings.  God designed us to experience so much in our first few years of life!  If there's one key aspect of a child's nature that I realize when I observe them, it's their zeal for learning.
     Now let's take a look at ourselves.  Washing dishes just isn't that much fun anymore, is it?  And when we were five, vacuuming was one of the greatest things this side of heaven.  But today?  Right in the middle of 'alone time'?!  Polishing mirrors?  No way!  Organizing the closet?  Out of the question!  (Forgive me, that last particular example comes straight from my heart.) :)  But I remember when I first learned to do those things.  I thought washing mirrors was great fun, not to mention writing my name with my fingers when it was wet!  Running into the coffee table with the vacuum was even better.  You know, when it makes that crack! noise when it hits the corner?  Hey, you mean you didn't do that?!?!
     There's something special about the way the Lord created us to learn.  Animals and other living things don't have the privilege of an intimate relationship with God, which is how we gain all of our wisdom and knowledge.  Proverbs 9:9-10 says this:

"Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser,

Teach a righteous man and he will increase his learning.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,

And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."

     What I glean from these verses is this.  To obtain wisdom and knowledge, we need to already have wisdom that only comes from a relationship with God.  We don't have to know everything, it just means that to gain knowledge, Christ has to be feared and served.  God is the only One who can give us enough understanding of our own fallen nature to guide us into a life with Him, so through trusting Him, we can gain wisdom by way of His grace.

     I understand that not everyone relishes the ins and outs of academic education, but the Lord gave us an incredible gift when He chose us above all other life forms to be the ones to which He imparts salvation, grace, and the abundance of things we can learn.  And through, yes, the cultivation of faithfulness, God will supply us with the enduring wisdom that only He can grant. 

"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world,

but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know

things freely given to us by God,

which things we also speak, not in words taught by

human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit,

combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words."

1 Corinthians 2:12-13