Every week I receive a devotional titled Wednesday’s Word from Paul Tripp. The following paragraph was part of a recent devotional titled “Never Stop Being a Student”:

“Do you think that you’ve arrived? Do you tend to think that you’ve learned what you need to learn and now know what you need to know? Or do you want to understand more deeply and more fully? Do you have a humble, open, and seeking heart?

There was once a time in the early years of our faith when we couldn’t get enough. We had a voracious hunger for truth. We lived with the humbling realization that there was so much we didn’t know. We loved to study the Word of God. We loved listening to peers and mentors who were further along. We were students.

But something happened along the way. Perhaps we got distracted by the world and began to live more like tourists than students. Perhaps we got discouraged and felt our study wasn’t helping. Or perhaps our hunger was blunted by a feeling of arrival.”1

That got me to thinking about all the different conversations I have about relationship with the Almighty – two in particular rise to the top.
One relates to the sense that some have of being thirsty/hungry and the awareness of serious lack in time spent with their Savior. The other relates to the belief of some that they really do have it all together. In other words, “I got this.”

In either case, I’m thinking, “Oh that WE would see the urgency OUR souls have for making time in His presence, a priority over all OUR other doings. For the one who is thirsty this would be pure delight as they become tangibly aware of the thirst-quenching, satiating food of THE WORD. And for the one who “has it,” time in His Presence would remind them that there is never an arrival point for them to feel any sense of pride. Rather, a renewed sense of humility in realizing that apart from His grace I am nothing, absolutely nothing.

Paul Tripp’s Wednesday’s Word continues:
“Whatever your story, I say to you – never stop being a student. There are two reasons. First – the depth of God’s wisdom. It has no boundary. It has no bottom. It has no ceiling. If for ten million years you sat for 24 hours a day at His feet to listen, you would scratch only the surface of His wisdom.

Here’s the second reason – the danger of the world. Falsehood echoes more loudly and repeatedly than the sounds of wisdom. Every day a thousand voices speak into your life, and the majority of those voices have not gotten the flowers of their insight from the wisdom garden of the Lord…Morning after morning, bow your head and humbly pray ‘Lord teach me Your way.'” (To read in full click on the link at the bottom)2

Today’s take-away: never, ever stop hungering and thirsting. Never stop being a student of the Word!

Stephanie

Stephanie Paul, wife and mother of two grown children. An “instrument of change” in the Redeemer’s Hand, in the lives of wounded and hurting women. Currently serving as a part of the Addiction Recovery Team at America’s Keswick as Woman of Character Program Director.

1 Wednesday’s Word is a resource of Paul Tripp Ministries, visit www.paultripp.com
2 ibid