What have we learned?
Before we leave this place, before we move on, ask the question.
Have we learned everything we needed to learn while we were here? Before we leave this place, before we move on, I pray we stop and ask the question.
What have we learned while we were here and is it everything we needed to learn?
Have we learned the importance of seasons and how God uses each one to benefit the other? The cycle is by His design and for the good of His creation.
Have we learned the benefit of living a simple, quiet, and peaceful life, even as the cars constantly drive past, never making it to their destination fast enough?
Have we learned how to be relentless in our removal of overgrowth that hides, weeds that choke, and predators that seek to kill?
Have we learned the hard work of cutting paths where previously there were none, or where the old ones had simply become much too hard to see, grown over from unuse? The ancient paths get forgotten so quickly, have we learned how to make them clear again?
Have we learned the patience, persistence, and endurance to remain zealous for these works, even when the fruits of our labors won’t be realized for quite some time later?
Have we learned how to find fascination in the perfect and beautiful design of the created world? And in finding this, are we then able to do something over and over again, without growing bored?
Have we learned how God protects, provides and sustains a thing as small as a seed, all the way through until the evergreen grows, and there the cedar tree stands tall for 100 years?
Have we learned how to have the faithfulness to sow, both “In the morning…and in the evening.” Refusing to, “withhold your hand, For you do not know which will prosper, Either this or that.”1
Have we learned to tend to the land we’ve been given, not neglecting it as too hard or insignificant?
Finally, have we learned to walk by faith and not by sight, knowing that at exactly the right time the reaping will come, for, “Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee.”2 We plant in the spring, water in the summer, and God brings the harvest in the fall, at exactly the right time.
There were lessons to be learned during this time, character to be proven, strength to be built, hope to be established, wisdom and understanding to be obtained.
Did we learn them? Or in our haste to move on have we squandered the time, aimless, impatient, stubborn, tired, worn out, distracted?
Quickly, while there is still time - ask the question.
“Lord, what have I learned while I was here, and is it everything I needed to learn?”
Wait for the response.
In love,
Derek
Ecclesiastes 11:6
Genesis 18:14
I'm still here, so must be more. There is so much to learn.