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PROGRAM D-8135

Often, what we need to do is to re-learn something we’ve already learned!

Many times, as I start to prepare my radio programs, I think, “I don’t have anything new to say,” and I start to panic because I haven’t got a new idea or a new topic to present. But God reminds me that repetition is the way we learn. Do you, like me, have to learn, re-learn, and re-learn again the lessons God wants to teach you? I’m amazed at the patience of our Lord as I see how slow I am to truly learn and obey all that I know.

God will work on one area of my life, and I’ll think I’ve made some progress. Then I look back a few weeks or months later and realize that I need to learn again what God has already taught me. How easily I forget. How easily I go back into old habits and wrong ways of thinking.

What I’m learning from all this is that I must be prepared to re-learn many times the things I’ve already learned. I must go back and repeat, because repetition is absolutely essential for me. I think of the verse to the old hymn which says, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” Truly, “prone to wander” is a good description of me. How about you?

Allow me to encourage you today if you find yourself in this same dilemma. Learn to re-learn. Go back and listen again to what God has already taught you. Do a lot of review. If there were books which spoke to your heart, read them again. If you’ve heard messages that made an impact on you, listen again and again. Repeat and repeat what you already know.

This is a good reason to keep a journal of the things God is saying to you and what you’ve been learning from the Bible—so that you can go back and re-read those things which you’ll otherwise forget. It’s a good way to re-learn.

If you listen regularly to this program, you have undoubtedly heard me repeat what I’ve said before—packaged a little differently but, nonetheless, repetitive of former programs. That’s as much for my sake as for yours, for the things I teach are the things I’m learning, and I need lots of repetition. I encourage you with this: Plan to be a re-learner so that you’re not so prone to wander from the good and basic lessons God has already taught you.