Key is teachableness

For years I’ve either read about or come across people who tell you, in one way or another, that because of hurt/abuse in their childhood and feelings of being unloved and/or rejected, they learned early on to “numb out” so they couldn’t feel anymore. This became the root of their unbelief.

A colleague of mine in New York City who I repeatedly gave the gospel to once told me that sometime in his mid-to-late teens he “learned to be indifferent” to dissolve heartbroken feelings he suffered throughout his youth as his military father regularly moved the family around the country, thereby causing dropped friendships and loneliness in trying to cope with constantly having to try and make new friends in foreign towns.

This co-worker told me this as his explanation for why, even though his mother was a true Believer who wanted the same for him, he never came to want the relationship God offers through Jesus Christ.

I realized from my talks with him about the Bible that he didn’t have a real feel for God’s Word and that it held no real emotional sway even though he was raised in it. He wasn’t opposed to what it said necessarily; it just didn’t grip him to any place of conviction.

*****

In a list of "9 Things Remarkably Successful People NEVER Do," posted to Inc. Magazine's internet site, No. 1 is, "They never let the past dictate their future."

"We all have limitations, we all have challenges, we all make mistakes," reads the entry. "The key is to not be constrained by those things but to learn from them.

Easier said than done? It all depends on your perspective.

"Take mistakes: When something goes wrong, turn it into an opportunity to learn something you didn't know--especially about yourself. (And when something goes wrong for someone else, turn it into an opportunity to be gracious and forgiving.)

"Where you've been, what you've done--everything in the past is just training. Remarkably successful people believe their past should inform them but should never define them."

*****

"The reality in God's Word is that no matter where I'm at or no matter what's going on, I am sufficient for all things in Jesus Christ," says Richard Jordan.

"By the way, the culture says contentment is some future event and when it gets here, I'll be happy. Forget it; it's not something you acquire; it's not a goal you reach. It's an attitude you learn from the sound doctrine; from the doctrine of God's grace.

"The key to learning things is to have a teachable spirit. So that when you're in the circumstances you ask God, 'What do I need to learn in these present circumstances?' This is instead of telling God what you want Him to change in them.

"What do I need to learn? What are you doing inside of me? We know that 'tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope.'

"The first priority God has in your life is to make you more and more and more, day by day, like His Son. To conform you to the image of His Son; to have Christ formed in you.

"In your ups and in your downs, to take that vital thread of that relationship you have with Jesus Christ, that's rooted in the truth of His Word, and authentic living with Him, to little by little have Him transforming your thinking and thus your life.

"It's so that there's someone who thinks and talks like Jesus Christ. Then in your life you bring this outrageous attitude of gratitude, thanksgiving and contentment. And in the midst of the injustices of life and the injustices of work, you think like Jesus Christ thinks.

"Living out the sufficiency you have in the Lord Jesus Christ takes teachableness. You have to choose to be thankful, focus on what you have in Christ and then step back and look around and ask, 'What do I need to learn where I'm at? What does God's Word say about this that I can bring into my circumstances?'

Philippians 4: [11] Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

[12] I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

[13] I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

"Poverty doesn't have the power to take away contentment. Paul says, 'I've had more and I've had less. More can't bring contentment, less can't take it away. '

"We really don't believe that latter one, do we? We really fear the poverty and yet, in the midst of abounding poverty, you can see people with contentment, joy, that people in the midst of luxury are all the day longing for."

(note: haven't forgotten about finishing up my Ohio State recollections, including the bus accident.)