Life's Learning Curve

Introduction

They say that experience is a great teacher. Certainly, it is true that we learn many, if not most, of our best lessons through our personal, and often painful, setbacks and failures. Yet, all too often that means learning the hard way! And it surely goes without saying that ignoring the lessons that may be learned from the experiences of others is hardly a wise way to get along in life. When we are young, we see ourselves as masters of our own future. We tend to be impatient with advice from others older and more experienced than us. We naively think that everything to go smoothly and easily.

But one of the realities of life is that sooner or later we will run into things that are neither of our choosing nor to our liking. If we are to respond positively to these difficulties, as they arise, we will need to be prepared for them. At the very least, we will need to realise that there is a way of turning our negative experiences into positive lessons. And that way is to tap into God's wisdom in the Bible.

The school of hard knocks

The Bible - God's Word always deals with realities. Among these is the fact that we get things wrong and do stupid things. Another is the fact that troubles will often come into our lives whether we go looking for them or not. The world is a school of hard knocks - and God uses it to bring us to Christian maturity.  He provides us with experiences to lead us to practical wisdom. Indeed, God the Holy Spirit was sent to us to be our Helper, Comforter and Counsellor, to lead us into all truth. His work is a practical course in which He brings the Word of God to bear upon our real experiences in the hard school of life.

The trouble with the school of hard knocks is that the bruising can so easily crowd out the learning and stall personal growth. Setbacks can crush a person's spirit. Crumbling under pressure undermines the moral foundations of our personal convictions and values, and steadily erodes that sense of balance and proportion which we need in our lives. People under pressure can feel driven to desperate action. Qoheleth shows us all of these.

One thing that hinders us in learning from our experience is a longing for earlier, apparently easier times - the good old days. That was one of Israel's recurrent failings - always in times of difficulty. During the wanderings in the Sinai desert, they even longed for the slavery in Egypt. Christians are not immune to this temptation. Some caught up in the responsibilities of middle life look back to the so-called carefree days of youth. Others long for the excitement of their first experiences as new followers of Jesus Christ and feel the rest of their lives to be an anticlimax. Indeed, there are whole churches that look back wistfully to a time in their past, when they feel that they were more influential and dynamic.

To think this way, says Qoheleth, is not wise. To pine for the past is to try to live life in reverse. But life is for living now. The past should drive us forward to seek the Lord's help in applying the lessons learned from that experience, not draw us back into embittered dreams of vanished joy.

Sometimes we are outraged when things do not go according to plan. We live in a day when outrage is regarded as a virtue. Ours is the age of the short fuse - taking legal action at the drop of a hat, lashing out at others, the phenomenon of road rage. All are the symptoms of a society in which frustration has become the justification for instant retaliation.

Another pitfall is impatience. Qoheleth emphasises that the end of a matter is better than its beginning. His point is that we should always look at the goal, not at the hurdles we are presently struggling to overcome. That’s what Jesus did we are told in Hebrews 12. For the joy set before him [He] endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. [So,] consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

The testing of our faith is meant to produce patience and to result in greater, even eternal, triumph. Patience is part of the fruit of the Spirit; and we must all develop it.

Life’s True Perspective

We need to get life into perspective, and it is the prospect of death, above all, that enables us to do that. For, it is in facing death that our minds may be concentrated - if we let them - on the most basic realities of life. It is death that reaches into our deepest being and moulds the very pattern of our future life. Death actually, and practically, helps us to think about life properly. Bereavement often causes otherwise careless people to think about the realities of life in a way that parties and fun never can. Some people imagine that they can drown their sorrows and escape from the challenges of life in parties and entertainment. But when the party is all over, life is back to what it was. The world is still there. And it won't go away. Listening to the song of fools, as Qoheleth pus it, might well be appealing, but it hardly guides us through the complexities of life.

But death knocks away the props which many people use to try to shore up their empty lives. And how does death do this? It’s because every funeral points to our own. From this perspective, the prospect of death is a gift of God’s grace. To be ready to die trusting in Jesus Christ for eternity is to be ready for life and living in the present!

ð  Sorrow deepens a person’s self - true happiness and joy are deepened and developed through the sorrows which we may experience. For, joy is the redemptive side of sorrow.

A woman called Rita Nightingale learned this as she sat in prison in Thailand. Rita had been imprisoned after drugs were found in luggage which she was carrying for a boyfriend. In the despair and discomfort of that Thai jail, she was led to faith in Christ. She had complained bitterly about the injustice of men and God in bringing her to such a sorry state. But through the witness of women missionaries who visited her and especially through a tract given to her by an elderly woman from her own hometown in England, she came to experience the freedom of the gospel of Christ. She realised that she had left God out of her life and that He, in His great love, had pursued her through the miseries of her imprisonment precisely so that she could be saved from her sins and brought to new life. "Eventually," she recalls, "I went inside the hospital hut in the prison compound. I sat down in the waiting area and gazed out across the yard, blinking in the suddenly bright sunlight. It's not just us who are in prison, I suddenly thought. The whole world's in prison, and I've just been shown the way out. I've been in prison all my life." After reading a borrowed Bible that evening, she could say with simple sincerity of heart, "I closed the Bible feeling happy. I might not know much about God, but now I knew who He was." The lessons of life should lead us to God; and they will, if we let them!

Wisdom from God

God-given wisdom is the key to learning from the experiences of life. But how does this work out? Well, says Qoheleth, it is a shelter - like, for example, money. We all know how having money can shelter us in a very practical way from nasty things like hunger and cold. Well, wisdom is like that, only more so, for it preserves the life of the one who possesses it. The point is that wisdom is something that gets beyond the under-the-sun world and reaches to heaven.

Conclusion

Wisdom does not come from age, intelligence, or experience – it comes from God. Only that can enable us to see the world in a balanced perspective and not be upset by the often hideous tragedies that happen in our lives. We need to wise up.

So, how can we develop this wisdom? Look to God. Look to Him! Listen to His Word! Turn to Him in obedience! Please Him and serve Him! Wise up with the wisdom that God is revealing to His people!