Becoming Teachable

Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching.

They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck

 

Proverbs 1:8-9

 

 

Have you ever tried to debate with someone who is convinced that they are right? You try and you try to reason with them, but they refuse to consider the possibility that they are wrong. As frustrated as we often are by stubborness, we must confess that we can be extremely stubborn ourselves. We tend to want to teach—not be taught!

 

Proverbs 15:32 says:

 

He who ignores discipline despises himself, but whoever heeds correction gains understanding.

 

We all want to be wise and have understanding, but do we take the steps required to become wise? Do we listen and accept rebuke? We cannot make any steps toward wisdom without being willing to surrender and be taught.

 

Jim Elliot once wrote:

 

"'He makes His ministers a flame of fire.' Am I ignitible? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of 'other things.' Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be a flame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul--short life? In me there dwells the Spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God's house consumed Him. 'Make me Thy Fuel, Flame of God.'"

 

Not long after writing the above quote, Jim Elliot left with his young wife for the mission field in Ecuador. There, he and four other missionaries attempted to reach a previously unreached Indian tribe—the Aucas—with the Word of God. On January 8, 1956, they were attacked by a group of Auca tribesmen. Though each of the missionaries had brought rifles with them for protection, they all refused to use them in self defense.

 

Every one of the missionaries was killed.

 

All five of the missionaries who died were young, newly married, and seemed to have their entire lives ahead of them. Yet, conscious of the danger of trying to reach the Aucas, they sacrificed their own interests for the purpose of obeying God.

 

What does this have to do with us?

 

It is most likely that we will not all have to die for our faith as Jim Elliot did, but each of us must die to ourselves.

 

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Matthew 16:24).

 

It has been said before that it is easier for us to surrender our bodies to death than it is to surrender our will to God. This death to ourselves is not one that we only die once, but it is a continual, every day death to our own flesh. This surrender includes giving up our own stubborness and willfulness and laying it at Christ's feet, giving it up so that we might become teachable and pliable in His hands.