Learning

I learn differently; or at least this has been what I have been told.  I am beginning to conclude this maybe true in some obscure way but at the heart of learning I am the same as any and everyone else.  We learn by observing someone modeling and then practicing.  The process is one on one, up-close, and personal.  This isn’t about information distribution even though that can be a part of learning. 
 
When I think of the lessons that I learned well I find that they share a common theme.  Wood turning?  Dad patiently teaches, letting me experiment, giving me the skills to protect me from myself.  Fundamentals of management?  Manucher patiently guides a young graduate eager to prove himself.  Leadership, winning, and playing the game?  Henry takes the quiet and steady lead with a na?ve corporate citizen, eager to win, and clueless of the issues and how to be part of the process.  The list of those teaching, guiding, and instructing is endless. 
 
The time often wasn’t long; in some cases just a single experience. 
 
As I look to the days ahead, understanding what has gone on before, I am filled with hope.  God has used rifle shots combined with an endless stream of proof statements to teach and guide me in the past.  I can see the process continuing if I say yes to what is here today.  There is so much that can and will happen, with a “yes” in the grace of a single moment.  In fact all I really need to do is live in that moment. 
 
“This is what the prophets meant when they wrote, ‘and then they will all be personally taught by God.’  Anyone who has spent any time at all listening to the Father, really listening and therefore learning, comes to me to be taught personally—to see it with his own eyes, hear it with his own ears, from me, since I have it firsthand from the Father.”  (John 6.45)
 
Got to run!  Its time to learn and live; two words that are truly redundant.