😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you. Reading Matthew 13:36-43, it got me thinking about how much teaching Jesus had to pack into His three year ministry. There had to be an incredible amount of teaching and on the job training in three years, to develop His disciples into worthy representatives of Himself, to bring forth all they saw, experienced, and learned, to all the nations. They came from a variety of educational backgrounds, learning styles, attention spans, retention levels, and abilities to trust and believe in what Christ was sharing with them. I have to believe that Christ would occasionally get frustrated with the fact that His disciples didn’t understand His words and meanings.
Matthew chapter 13, for example, starts with Jesus teaching a crowd using parables. His disciples then questioned Jesus, wanting to know why He used parables to teach. But they didn’t stop there. The disciples then asked Jesus to explain the meaning of the parable. By now, Jesus may be thinking to himself, don’t they understand anything. Jesus explains the parable, then teaches them using a few more parables, then explains the parable, then shares more parables. It seems like a never ending cycle. I imagine Jesus wished we would get it the first time He told us what we needed to know, but He knows us all too well and patiently continues to teach us over and over again until we get that AHA! moment of clarity.
I appreciate the fact that the disciples weren’t afraid to ask the questions. You and I should be the same way. I don’t think God just wants us to follow Him blindly, which is evidenced by the fact that He wants to be in relationship with us. He wants us to have dialog and discussions with Him. He is certainly not afraid to answer the hard questions, after all, He is all knowing. Maybe the challenge or fun in it for Him is to figure out the best way to respond to our questions, so that we actually learn.
Never stop asking questions. Wisdom comes through learning and experiences. If you just experience, but don’t ask why, in search of the meaning, then you have only learned half the lesson. Maybe that’s how the term half-witted came into being.
Be bold in your faith and share what you have learned. As Chris Stefanick said at the National Eucharistic Congress, “Two thirds of God’s name is GO.”
You don’t have to be perfect. God will fill in the blanks.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
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Third Day Devotions 