Learn As You Go

That is what I am doing with this blog! Learning as I go. I spent half the day today wrestling with the computer program that creates this blog. “It’s easy,” they said. “Self-explanatory,” they said. When it comes to figuring out new things on a computer, it is almost never easy for me. In fact it was extremely frustrating and there were several times I was just going to throw in the towel and give up. So you may see things change a lot on my blog until I get things figured out. I will eventually add more pictures and information and develop the format more as I figure out how to do that!
This is the story of my life. Really it should be the story of all of our lives. We learn by doing, by trying, by acting. We make mistakes and we keep trying until we get it right. Sometimes we have to ask for help (like contacting the help chat line), asking someone with more understanding, watching a tutorial or reading instructions. Sometimes we may even get it right the first time. When we do get it right, whether at first or after 50 tries, it builds our confidence to keep going. To persevere!

This is much like the sanctification process. We are all works in progress, learning as we go. Of course we must apply what we learn, making adjustments and modifications along the way to becoming a better version of who God designed us to be. We may learn from those wiser than us when we seek wise council, we hopefully will read life’s instruction manual (the Bible), or hear a message or a sermon that teaches us important lessons. We also learn from life experiences, good and bad. The Bible says problems and trials produce perseverance, which produces character and character produces hope. Hope that doesn’t disappoint us because of Gods love for us (Romans 5:3-5). There is hope beyond this, in the process, in the character shaping, in the persevering! But what usefulness is learning if we don’t apply it? James 1:22 tells us not to merely listen to the Word but to do what it says, otherwise we are deceiving ourselves. What a waste of time that is!

Our stories are the life experiences that make-up who we are now and who we are to become. Sometimes we can even be changed and shaped by other people’s stories. But our stories become chapters and the chapters become a book. Not just any book, but a beautifully crafted masterpiece of our life. A best seller!

How many times have I said, “I wish I had known then what I know now?” “How much easier life would have been.” That’s just it! It was the journey and the process of experiencing life, learning from it and applying what I learned, that got me to a place of understanding. It made me who I am. That is why when you tell your young adult children things you learned from experiences and choices you’ve made, they look at you at times like you haven’t got a clue. They have to experience it for themselves no matter how badly we want them to learn from our experiences. Nobody wants the bad experiences or the trials of life and we certainly avoid them if at all possible. The fact is bad experiences come anyways and the Gods honest truth is that if God promises to take the bad and work it for our good for those who love him and are called according to his purposes, (Romans 8:28), then if we could go back and take away the bad experience we also remove the good God will work out of those circumstances! Often times the good far exceeds the bad. That is a whole other blog topic! 

So hopefully as I blog along. I will learn and apply and create a masterpiece! I will seek advice from those chat room support advisors, from tutorials, from my daughter who is ahead of me in the blogging world and my husband the IT expert. I will learn through trial and error in many cases. But above all, I’m gonna have a lot of fun trying!! I hope you all will be blessed along the way. There is hope beyond this! To God be the glory.