School is back in session in many areas. It looks different depending on where a person lives as there are in-person learning at a school building, homeschooling, and remote learning with a teacher using technology to teach students in a variety of locations. As our children return to school (Elijah-College Senior; Micah-HS Senior; Judah-HS Sophomore; Isaiah-8th Grade; Sarafina- Kindergarten), I am reminded of the question I was asked when I was a student returning from school and that I ask now as a parent, “What did you learn today?” This question was often met with silence or the phrase, “Nothing.” I knew they had probably learned something during the day, but maybe they did not realize how much they had learned until later when the new knowledge was applied through written testing or questions raised during class.
I recently wondered how I would answer this question about my life and especially about my spiritual life: “What did I learn today?” When I look at Jesus’ interactions with his disciples, I see more than one time when he sat them down to teach them and to process an experience or something he had just taught to the crowd. One of those occasions was Matthew 13:36 where we read, “Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.’” The disciples wanted to understand what Jesus was teaching them. They wanted to spend more time in intimate conversation to try to understand the Kingdom of God and what Jesus was teaching them. We know the disciples, though they have a great desire to learn, don’t always understand the fullness of what Jesus taught. Yet, we know from the Acts of the Apostles, they were able to apply the knowledge they received as the Holy Spirit empowered and enabled them. As they trusted the Holy Spirit to give them the right words to speak at just the right time, they were able to witness the transformation and the beginning of the Church spreading from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
What are you learning? How are you spending time with Jesus to learn more? How are you trusting the Holy Spirit to take what you have learned and apply it to your daily life? It is my prayer that when asked, “What did you learn today?” that your answer won’t be “nothing.”