Why God Keeps Bringing the Same Lesson Again and Again
I’m torturing my Spanish students by making them conjugate 50 verbs. Five verbs, four tenses each, every day for two weeks.
Write, write, write, write.
Turn the page.
Write, write, write, write.
Turn the page.
I threw out a big word to them called automaticity. This is when we are able to process information involuntarily and without conscious control. Automaticity is what I want for them in conjugating verbs, which is why page after page of writing has value.
Remember learning your times tables?
8 x 8 = 64
We go over and over and over the same information so many times that we can give a response years later without giving it any thought.
Can you imagine if my Spanish students are trying to have a conversation with a Spanish speaker down the road, and they have to stop and say, Wait, now how do I conjugate the verb “tener” again? And should I use the preterite or imperfect tense? The conversation will be dead in the water.
Or if someone says to you, What’s 8 x 8?, and you say, Wait, 8 x 1 is 8, plus 8 is 16, plus 8 is 24…
In the basics we need an automatic response, and this is no less true in our spiritual lives.
Paul prays that the Colossians will “live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way.” (Colossians 1:10 NIV)
Why does God teach us a lesson and then sometime later we’re learning the same thing again? I think it’s because we need to run drills until the God-honoring response comes involuntarily.
Someone cuts you off on the road.
Automatic grace.
You lose your job.
Automatic trust.
You have a hard day.
Automatic hope.
Whatever you’re going through right now, are you demonstrating automaticity in pleasing the Lord?
Through your words God blesses me every morning with my morning cup of coffee. Today was the same. I homeschool my kids and have been telling them about automaticity (thanks for the word to describe it!). I see how I need to apply it in my life now too. I’ll let them know that Mom has already been learning this morning. Thank you for what you do. It truly lifts my spirit and focuses me toward God every morning!
Oh wow, I have so much respect for moms who homeschool. I don’t know how you do it. Thanks for joining me for coffee in the morning! 🙂 And thank you for the kind encouragement.