Sometimes I am impatient, wanting instant understanding and instant results as I seek to disciple my children. I get a little worried that they won’t have learned all the things they need to by the time they leave our house as adults!
Sometimes my children are discouraged because there is much in the Bible they don’t understand. (I was the same way when I was small.) They are afraid there is something wrong with them because they get confused easily!
Does the Bible have any answers for me as I try to encourage myself and them? Of course!
Did you know that Jesus was a master at giving instruction before it was needed? My mom always calls it time-released teaching. If you watch carefully as you read through the four gospels, you will see Jesus giving information before his disciples are able or ready to understand what he is saying. Jesus doesn’t seem distressed that he was giving instruction that wasn’t quickly understood and assimilated. He just keeps teaching, knowing that the Holy Spirit will bring these things to their minds at the right time.
I read these verses to my children after a discussion where Bethel told me she doesn’t understand most of the verses in Proverbs. I told her that was okay (after I told about when I was a little girl, I was very worried when someone told me to put a question mark by every place in the Bible that I didn’t understand. I would have had question marks next to nearly every verse!)
Don’t worry, I told them, when you don’t understand everything. Find something that you do understand, and turn it into a prayer or obey it!
Later, I told myself, Self, don’t worry when they don’t understand everything. Let the Holy Spirit be God, and stick with your own job.
These are super cool and you’ll find more if you look. Go look them up for yourself in their contexts!
And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. John 14:29
But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. John 16:4
These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him. John 12:16