Rev Dwight Fletcher | Walking in wisdom – Part 3

Last week, we began to engage the acronym LEARN as an easy way to remember the steps to growing in wisdom. ‘L’ stands for ‘listen to God’s Word every day’, and ‘E’ stands for ‘enrol with friends who challenge me’. Today, we will look at the ‘A’ and ‘R’ in the acronym.

A – ASK QUESTIONS AND ACCEPT CORRECTION

The Bible says, “People’s thoughts can be like a deep well, but someone with understanding can find the wisdom there” (Proverbs 20:5, NCV). In other words, everybody has something to teach us. Like deep water in a well, we have to draw it out of them. How do we draw wisdom out of someone? By asking the right questions, we can learn from anybody.

And significantly, all leaders are learners. The moment we stop learning, we stop leading. Growing businesses require growing businessmen. Growing families require growing parents. Growing churches require growing pastors. Anything that wants to grow needs a leader who is outgrowing it, or the growth of the body stops.

Proverbs 19:27 (CEV) says, “If you stop learning, you will forget what you already know.”

We’ve got to keep on learning and growing. If we keep learning, then we keep growing, and we don’t forget all the stuff we previously knew.

R – REMEMBER AND REINFORCE WHAT I LEARN

It is crucial that we not just learn but that we remember and reinforce what we learn. If we don’t remember, we end up having to learn the same lesson repeatedly.

The United States Air Force says we forget 90 to 95 per cent of everything we hear within 72 hours. The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory. If we’re not writing things down, they are going in one ear and out the other. We have to retain to remember so we can review and apply it to our situations.

The Bible says in Proverbs 22:17-18 (GNT), “Listen, and I’ll teach you what the wise have said. Study their teachings, and you will be glad if you remember them and can quote them.” Listen, study, remember, and quote — those are marks of wisdom.

People say, why should I memorise the Bible? We do it because every time we need the Bible’s truth, we may not have one at hand. Memorised verses are the best thing for overcoming temptation because when we’re tempted to be jealous or insecure, or when we start losing our patience, or getting angry, or lusting, or having any kind of temptation in life, if we have a verse memorised for that, God can bring it to mind, and it helps us to resist the temptation.

Did you also know that memorising actually improves our brainpower? Regardless of what we memorise, our brainpower grows because of it. We get smarter when we attempt to memorise something. When we memorise scripture, we’re going to be not only wiser spiritually but more mentally acute. Our brain is going to be sharper simply because we’ve exercised it.

The Bible says in Proverbs 44:21-22 (NLT), “ Don’t lose sight of my words. [That means memorise them, retain them.] Let them penetrate deep within your heart, for they bring life and radiant health to anyone who discovers their meaning.” So, if we want radiant health and life, then we need to fill our minds with the truth. Let it penetrate our hearts so that God can bring it to mind when we need it most.

Let us add the practice of these two to those we learned last week. Join us next week as we learn the ‘N’ and conclude this series.