Applying the Lessons

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Philippians 2:12-13
In my small group instruction each day, I teach my students some very basic strategies to help them read words accurately. One of the strategies I teach my older students is how to divide a longer, unknown word into syllables. It can be quite a tedious process to teach this breaking of a word into its syllables because there are several steps, and there are some points where they need to learn some knowledge about words and their parts in order to complete the process successfully.

But what I know is that if they take the time to learn this process really well, so that they can do it independently, it will help them so much! So I take the time to teach them, and they participate each day in the process. And when they are in my room and that is what we are focusing on, they have it. They can do it.

But here’s an important part that many of my students seem to miss. In order for this strategy to be helpful to them, they have to use it all the time -- when I’m in the room with them, and when they are reading in their classrooms on their own or at home. Knowing how to do this doesn’t help them one bit if they don’t actually follow through and use it on their own. And it is very frustrating to watch a student struggle to read a word that you know they have the ability to read, if they would just apply what they’ve been taught.

There are a few of these older students that I see at two different times during the school day -- once for grade-level reading instruction and once for specific work in word study/phonics and fluency. And it always amazes me that when they are reading from their grade-level reading textbooks, they rarely apply the things they are learning during our word study/phonics lessons. They will get stuck reading a word, and I will prompt them to use the strategies they’ve learned. That’s when I usually get a big sigh and an eye roll.

So when I read these verses from Paul during a Wednesday night Bible study time at church, I was instantly convicted. Paul was reminding the people of the church at Philippi to continue to obey in the things they had learned when Paul was with them, even though he was no longer there. Just because the man who was teaching them was gone physically from their presence, they had no excuse not to continue to live out what he had taught them.

God’s Holy Spirit is constantly teaching me, too, and I am quite certain there are many times He is frustrated with me for not using what He has been teaching me. When I am sitting at my computer typing a devotion, when I am studying my Bible at home or at church, when I am teaching my Sunday School class and discussing the scriptures with others, the lessons seem so clear! But when I walk into my day, when I leave the church building, when the Bible is left on my bookshelf while I go “do life,” how easy it is to forget to use what I have been taught!

God has a good purpose for us.  He wants us to fulfill that purpose.  He teaches us and speaks to us to help us along the way, but at some point we have to put those lessons into action.  If I'm going to experience life as God intends -- if I want to be a blessing to someone else along the way as God has planned ahead, then I must obey in the things He has taught me.

Lord, forgive me for so often doing just what my students do - so often I fail to apply what You have taught me when I am in the midst of my days. Thank You for Your gentle reminders and constant patience with me!