Life is a relentless learning process. Every situation, problem, people difficulty and oppositional circumstance has something to teach us about God and ourselves.
Through it all, we learn to stand in God and press into His majesty. We learn to overcome, persist, and receive under pressure. We learn to rejoice always, and in everything give thanks. And most importantly, we learn God’s will for us in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).
Every blessing, act of goodness, expression of favor, and promise teaches us about the nature of God. What we learn and believe about His nature gradually becomes our character.
There is not a single occurrence in our lives that does not have some learning opportunity attached to it.
I find it virtually impossible to become Christ-like when everything is going well.
But when I stay stuck, downhearted, or discouraged, it is usually a learning issue. Some learning has not taken place, therefore I must retake the test later. We are figuratively held back in the previous grade until we learn enough to get onto the next level.
If we do not really learn joy, we are almost certain to become despondent. If we fail the lessons of peace, anxiety can attach itself to us. And the only way to learn trust and faith is to use our problems effectively. We learn how to put off our old self, be renewed in our thinking, and put on the new self (Ephesians 4:20-24; Colossians 3:1-10). Learning to think from the realm of Heaven and not the perspective of the world is a major key to growth in power.
As we begin to understand this beautiful kingdom principle, here are a few guiding encouragements…
1) Love the learning and avoid being angry, hurt, or offended.
Frustrating people are our grace growers. They provide (unconsciously) a shortcut into the nature of God’s kindness, love, and goodness. Learn to spot the opportunity in the crisis and take advantage. Wisdom accrues to people who delight in maturity.
2) When we fail to take joy in learning, we are at a real disadvantage in life.
We remain ignorant of how real growth opportunities occur. Remaining unenlightened creates a distortion in our relationship with God. For example, people who judge can never become merciful until they learn not to judge. Similarly, when we are angry we cannot learn nor release love.
3) When we do not love the learning, we require remedial training.
We have to be corrected, which can be embarrassing. But The Holy Spirit loves to teach us! And through that, we become teachable, trainable, joyful, and willing disciples. We learn to take full advantage of every situation.
4) A teachable person is not available for whining, complaining, or pity parties.
They are too busy becoming a better individual. When a teachable person loves learning to trust, they kill off anxiety, worry, and doubt. It takes a long process of doubt to come to a place of unbelief in Christ. It involves lots of missed opportunities to learn trust and faith. Somewhere along the way, we learned worry instead.
5) Learn positivity. Because if you don’t, you’re guaranteed to learn negativity.
It is psychologically easier to repeat a defeat when we have a negative outlook. However, when we breakthrough in that area, the pattern of our life is interrupted. God inserts another possibility for learning.
6) There is no breakthrough that doesn’t result in some sort of follow through.
We fight two battles over every issue: one battle to get free, another to stay free. We all know those people who won the first, lost the second, and returned to a negative lifestyle. The second battle is our opportunity to follow through on our breakthroughs with positivity and freedom.
We do not have time to wallow in mediocrity. If our learning capacity is attached to pain, we will simply not grow.
Being renewed in the spirit of our mind is made possible because our enjoyment of learning creates the inner space for transformation to occur. When we love our learning process, we become truly capable of learning abundance and fullness as a way of life.
Take time today to write down the details of your current situations as an expression of what you could be learning. Come before the Holy Spirit as your joyful Helper. If your love of learning matches His joy in disclosing, you will have amazing encounters and astonishing learning experiences.
P.S. To learn more on how to think in the transformational process as a believer, I’d encourage you to browse our resource section dedicated to helping you do just that: Transformational Thinking.