Teachable

“I think I am not teachable!” I exclaimed to my husband yesterday.  I just cannot keep things in my head! “I don’t think that’s true.”  I was feeling discouraged about how I have been taught by so many, but how little have retained. 

This conversation came out of the discussion of taking the comprehensive exams, which are in December, and will replace the need to write a thesis.  They are a lot of work, and you have to write what you have learned over the years in answer to three specific scenarios.

This morning the Lord surprised me with these encouraging words:  

Psalm 32:8-9

“You are my hiding place;

you protect me from trouble

and surround me with songs of deliverance. “

Selah

“I will instruct you and teach in the way you should go; 

I will counsel you and watch over you. 

Do not be as a horse and mule,

which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle. 

Many woes come to the wicked,

but the LORD’S unfailing love surrounds the man who trust in

him.”

Working backwards…can I trust God and experience his enfolding love or am I more like a mule who doesn’t understand the way and must be forced into it?

God watches over me.  The same God who watched over Paul when the crowd in Jerusalem wanted to nab him in Acts 21, who powerfully cared for the Israelites by placing a pillar between them and the Egyptians, who said to Hagar in the desert, “I am the God who is here.”

When I trust him, God counsels me.  Like Hezekiah laying the letter from Senacherib before the Lord in the temple, I can lay before God every confusing situation, fear, and insecurity, and he will give me wise counsel.  I laid before God the decision to do a thesis and comprehensive exams despite my insecurities, and he made it clear that the comprehensive exams in December are the best option. 

When I trust God, he will teach me.  He’s the best teacher, the one who taught Moses to be a leader, who taught the disciples to plant a church and do missions, who taught them what to say when they were before kings and rulers, and who instructed them where they should go to share the Gospel of Jesus. 

In all these things, he sings songs of deliverance into my heart because when my heart condemns me, the Spirit of God affirms that I am his child!  I will be delivered from the lies of the enemy, and have victory as it looks in the eyes of the Most High!

The Most High protects me and hides me in Christ…I am hidden in Christ Jesus!

God has found me so teachable that he himself will instruct me, and he never wastes his time.  

Please pray that God will fill me with his wisdom as I prepare for the exams and  confident to know God finds me teachable, and will help me study the right things!