Takes one to know one

"I have given you an example"

John 13:15

Well, in between watching the Olympics, and trying to stay cool as the mercury rose, I found myself doing some Algebra today.   I know it's summer, but we never stop school completely for the summer.  There's always more to learn, and I think if we're not careful, our brains can atrophy if we stop learning!  And that goes for all of us! 

Awesome Girl has just a few more lessons in her Algebra book, so we're getting those completed so that she can start the next level of math in a few weeks.  She's pretty excited.  No, really!  :)  She's good at math, and enjoys the challenge. 

But before we could start today's lesson, we had to go over yesterday's.  If she gets any problems wrong, we go over those and make sure she understands whatever she didn't understand when she originally did the problem.

For one of those problems today, she had an interesting response when we went over it.  She said she had been unsure how to proceed with the problem, because it was unlike any of the "practice" problems in the text, so she couldn't see the step-by-step to solving it.  She kinda said, "Ohh.... there weren't any examples of that kind for me to follow."

That statement really gave me pause.  She was right; it was a new concept, and it would have been helpful for her to see a couple of different kinds of possibilities she might encounter.  And I started thinking about Scripture, and how the Bible is full of examples, of many different kinds, for us to follow.  Maybe that's why the book is so big!

Kings and queens, shepherds and soldiers, teachers, farmers, priests, midwives, artists, tentmakers and a carpenter.  Impatient, disobedient, weak, cowardly, discouraged... leaders and followers, rich and poor, fathers and mothers and grandmothers.  And more.  Men and women, and even children showing us how ~ or how not to ~ live for God. 

I love that about the Bible.  I love that there is someone you can relate to.  Probably several someones, depending on the circumstance you are living through.   Some of them are more "famous" than others.  But they're there for you.   Find them, and learn from them.

"all these things happened to them as examples, 

and they were written for our admonition"

1 Corinthians 10:11