Lessons

I have this way of training new people on my team at work that I think works really well. I have them work with more experienced team members for awhile...in this process, they're being helped step by step with someone telling and reminding them of whatever they need to know. Eventually, I will set them off to work on their own. Then, someone more experienced will review their work. Then, the reviewer takes a very specific approach to providing correction. If there (for example) 4 mistakes, the reviewer will tell the new person, "Okay, you have 4 things that need to be corrected. Can you figure out what they are?"

If they take a second pass and find 3 of the 4, I will then ask them to go through each individual element or decision and consider why they've completed it in the way they have - letting them know they're still missing 1. Usually, they find the 4th mistake this way. But if not, I'll tell them which thing is wrong, and then challenge them to come up with the correct thing on their own. Finally, if they're still stuck, I will go ahead and give them the corrected version. And then we do the same thing all over again.

My experience with this approach to training is that, as long as the initial "hand holding" stage is thorough, it usually moves quickly. New employees learn to identify, work through and correct issues on their own, and they become self-sufficient for all intents & purposes.

I've seen this parallel lately in my own life and some of the things the Lord has been teaching me this year. As longer term readers will know, early in 2009, the Lord kicked off a pretty "exciting" journey driving me toward deeper belief. I put exciting in quotation marks, because although the results are exciting and the process was dynamic, much of it has been sort of painful and painstaking. I guess I'm a slow learner in this area!

None the less, as the year has progressed, I am seeing the progress in His curriculum for me. Early in the year, I needed to write about, meditate on and study up on believing Him on a pretty daily basis. I was starting from scratch in so many ways! And as the year has gone on, I've needed refreshers. I have had plenty of my own instances where I have had the Lord say, "You're missing 3 things. Can you figure out where they are?" And, at least in this metaphor, they might be 3 ways in which I was not believing Him and His truth.

So, last night, I had a realization about some big ways in which I have not been believing God. I have been relying on my own best ideas for clarity and direction in many ways. So, I had a good heart to heart with the Father and asked for forgiveness and resolutely turned back in a Godly direction (viz., I repented). And as I was digesting all this inside myself, I was realizing that I, too, am being trained and that some of God's process for tutelage resembles training I've done in more practical areas of my own life.

At first, He was giving me direct and blatant reminders about believing all the time. And as I've learned, and put into practice the things I'm learning, I have needed less and less reminding. Now, naturally, part and parcel with being a student is the fact that, sometimes, I lose my way and don't know what I'm doing. When those times come, I need only go to the Teacher and He sets my path straight. For me, the hard part is sometimes 1) realizing I've gone astray and 2) remembering its as simple as turning to Him. But when I do, He always gets me going. He is a patient, kind and amply capable Instructor. I am so grateful!