So that your trust may be in the Lord, I teach you today, even you. (Proverbs 22:19)

“Even you.” Such a strange, unexpected occurrence of that phrase, except I welcome it because it could apply to any of us for various reasons. We are all called to be disciples, but we all have things that prevent us from learning. “Even you,” means that we all have exemptions to learning — things that excuse us from the process — that we need to guard against. We are all called to be students, all the time. We are always learning and class is always in session.

“Even you” could mean a number of things. We need to be on guard for any of these lest they creep into our thinking. It could mean:

You are stupid. But this is highly unlikely. No one is too stupid to learn. And yet, you might think you are. You might be overwhelmed with what those around you know, making you seem stupid by comparison, but this is never true for followers of Christ. In discipleship, we each have our own path to learning, and it may not look like everyone else’s. But because we have the Holy Spirit to teach us, learning is personalized. You will get what you need, when you need it, not before.

You are smart. This is more likely to happen — we think we already know what we need to know, so when it comes time for learning, we exempt ourselves. We might even do something as noble as think of how we can help someone else learn, since we already know. Leaders are especially vulnerable to this trap. To always think the teaching is for someone else is to put yourself beyond learning, and that is a dangerous place to be regardless of how smart you are.

You are not paying attention. You are too busy. You are distracted. You have ADD. There is just too much going on in your life for you to stop and learn something. (This would be tragic.)

You are not going to do anything about it. This is probably the worst exemption to learning, but quite possibly the most common among Christians. Being exposed to multiple weekly teaching sessions can be a wonderful opportunity to learn, but that is only if what is being taught is acted upon. Jesus was constantly warning against hearing the word and doing nothing about it. Some Christians are simply over taught and under developed. Repeated hearing without doing makes one callous to learning.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24).

So put your trust in the Lord today and be ready to learn — yes you. I’m talking to you … even you!

[NOTE: Because Marti received so many greetings and best wishes for her birthday over the weekend, she wanted me to thank you all for the love and encouragement you poured out to her lest she miss thanking everyone.]