Repetition

Christian Working Woman Transcript

Friday, September 28, 2007 - When the Foundations Are Crumbling


This is message number 5325. That is the number of these programs I have written since we began this daily edition of our ministry over twenty years ago. Often as I start to prepare the programs, I think, "I don't have anything new to say." And I start to panic because I haven't got a new idea or a new topic to present.

But God has been reminding me lately that repetition is the way we learn. Do you, like me, have to learn and re-learn and re-learn the lessons God wants to teach you? I'm amazed at the patience of our Lord, as I see how slow I am to truly learn and obey all that I know.

God will work on one area of my life, and I'll think we've made some progress. Then I look back a few weeks or months later, and realize that I need to learn again what God has already taught me. How easily I forget; how easily I go back into old habits and wrong ways of thinking.

What I'm learning from all this is that I must be prepared to re-learn many times the things I've already learned. I must go back and repeat, because repetition is absolutely essential for me. I think of the verse to the old hymn which says, "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; prone to leave the Lord I love." Truly "prone to wander" is a good description of me. How about you?

Well, let me encourage you, if you find yourself in this same dilemma. Learn to re-learn. Go back and listen again to what God has already taught you. Do a lot of review. If there were books that spoke to your heart, read them again. If you've heard tapes or CDs of messages that made an impact on you, get them out and listen again and again. Repeat and repeat what you already know.

In the Bible God was co­nstantly urging His people to remember, to recite, to re-learn what they had been dramatically taught already, because He knew that we are all prone to wander.

If you regularly subscribe to these program transcripts, you have undoubtedly seen me repeat what I've written before, packaged a little differently, but nonetheless repetitive of former programs. That's as much for my sake as for yours, for the things I teach are the things I'm learning, and I need lots of repetition. So, plan to be a re-learner, so that you're not so prone to wander from the good and basic lessons God has already taught you.