Week Two: Expand – Leaning Into What We Don’t Yet Know
You, then, that teach others, will you not teach yourself?
Romans 2:21
By Beth Koonce
A favorite college professor, when I told him that I was applying to medical school, told me that he had hoped I would go into teaching. My immediate unspoken reaction was: “No way! I could never be adept at speaking to a class; I thought he knew me better!”
But at some point, fairly early in my medical career, it occurred to me that after having spent years in intensive learning mode in school, and then in pediatric residency training, much of my workday was actually being spent teaching. While I wasn’t at the front of a classroom, I was teaching parents, patients, and office staff about child health, all day long.
Of course, I had to keep learning pediatrics on an ongoing basis, too, from colleagues, journals, continuing ed meetings, etc. And over the years, I slowly recognized that an equally important part of teaching myself was a kind of teaching that can be harder to do, especially for somebody in an “authoritative” professional position.
Patients and parents, nurses, and other staff, all taught me new things… sometimes about medicine, but often about human relationships and communication. This required my being receptive to learning something valuable even in situations in which I was “the expert.” A much more challenging, for me anyway, kind of learning than the kind required for board recertification. I’m sure that there were many, many opportunities that I missed.
My Bible study group is reading the Beatitudes right now, and it happens that the one we were examining when I was asked to write about today’s verse from Romans is "Blessed are the meek (Matthew 5:5)." Perhaps a God wink? Our group has talked about the definition of “blessed.” Maybe in the Beatitudes, Jesus meant that states like meekness are blessed because they are ones that leave us more receptive to opportunities to learn something about the kingdom, something about our relationship with God.
Dear God, Help me to remember that You are the authority, and that you sent Jesus to teach me about your kingdom. Open my heart to opportunities to be taught and transformed by the Holy Spirit. Amen.
