10 things you can do to grow in knowledge …

I had the weirdest experience several months ago that was a challenge to resolve.

The problem?

The headlights on the ministry car started turning on all by themselves.

I kid you not!

Even when the car was parked and locked, with no one inside, the headlights would suddenly come on.

Now, I’m not mechanically inclined, and my knowledge of cars is largely limited to driving them, so this new and very odd situation immediately perplexed me. I had never heard of something like this happening before.

As it turns out, neither had my friends with strong mechanical aptitude.

This problem with the headlights also occurred during the middle of the night, which finally resulted in my being unable to start the car the following morning due to a low battery. So I had to fix the problem.

Not knowing what to do, I reached out to a few people I know with strong mechanical knowledge and skills … and they were stumped.

What do you do when you need knowledge? I googled it! But even that didn’t offer any real help.

In despair, I turned to doing searches on YouTube … and finally stumbled over one short video that passingly suggested a cause to my troubles. Following that information, I bought a new “body control module” and replaced the old one.

It worked!

No more headlights turning themselves on.

I was elated that the first try at resolving the problem was the needed fix.

During my frustration in trying to resolve this odd problem, it struck me that my frustration came from needing a base of knowledge I knew I didn’t have.

Here’s the thing about that: We will always need more knowledge than we have. It’s no wonder, then, that the Bible urges us to make the whole process of growing in knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to be something we pursue:

“Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures,” Proverbs 2:2-4.

“Intelligent people are always ready to learn. Their ears are open for knowledge,” Proverbs 18:15.

“Get all the advice and instruction you can, so you will be wise the rest of your life,” Proverbs 19:20.

We’ll never in our lifetimes learn everything we should know. So how should we handle that? Let me suggest 10 things you can do to grow in knowledge:

1. Commit yourself to lifelong learning. We should do this in a couple ways. First, to be a “disciple” of Jesus means to be a learner or student of Jesus, and we’re to do that as part of a lifelong process of becoming like Him. Second, we also need to do that as a person. Over our lifetimes, we should continue to grow in our knowledge in various ways —— as spouses, parents, friends, employees or leaders, etc. We can grow and become better in all those categories and more. There will never come a day in this lifetime when you’ve learned it all, have become perfect, and don’t have something more to learn. Knowing that, we should purposely commit to being lifelong students of Jesus first, and then of life.

2. Develop an intimate relationship with the greatest teacher in your life —— the Holy Spirit. It takes little study in the New Testament to know a chief responsibility of the Holy Spirit in the life of Christians is to lead us into all truth. He is the single greatest, and most important teacher we will ever have! In that case, we should pursue developing a profoundly intimate relationship with Him.

3. Develop and commit to key habits of learning. Make as habits those opportunities for learning that are available to you, such as: Attending church service every week to learn from the sermons, participating in a small group or Sunday school class, being committed to personally reading and studying the Bible every day, choosing select sources of information to flow into your life consistently (daily news sources, weekly meetings, etc.).

4. Develop relationships with select people to inform your life. These may be people to inform your life spiritually, as a husband or wife, as a parent, in your profession, etc. We stunt our growth by not purposely making sure we have these people in our lives and allow them to “speak into” our lives. As a Christian, we especially need to make sure we have brothers and sisters in Christ who contribute to informing us and helping us build our knowledge and grow in understanding. Joining a professional association or organization can help you foster relationships with other professionals you can learn from, etc.

5. Ask God for wisdom. “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking,” James 1:5.

6. Recruit mentors, teachers, coaches, and trainers as needed. Often if a person needs specific knowledge to do something but doesn’t have that knowledge, they’ll limit themselves by not gaining the knowledge they need, but instead will do something else (often something less). When you realize you need to gain certain knowledge or understanding that you don’t have, pursue that by hiring a mentor, teacher, coach, trainer, or other qualified persons who can help you gain the knowledge and understanding you need. When I trained people in the gym as a certified Personal Trainer, I saw many quit their gym memberships because they didn’t know how to exercise effectively to accomplish their fitness goals. Instead of hiring a Personal Trainer to benefit from their expertise, they just quit. Many people do that in various areas of their lives, limiting themselves by not seeking the knowledge and understanding that would equip them to grow, progress, and be more fruitful.

7. Take advantage of technology. Just by using any of an array of digital devices, you can access much of humanity’s knowledge! Technology is also an avenue to a wealth of biblical teaching and training. If you really want to grow in knowledge and understanding, technology is an invaluable and easily accessible tool for doing that. Additionally, there are online groups or “communities” you can join that can provide you with knowledge, insights, and instruction on a broad range of interests.

8. Read broadly. Reading can be an enjoyable pleasure, but far more than that. If you can read, there’s very little you can’t learn! Challenge yourself to go beyond reading just for your pleasure or entertainment, but reading broadly on different topics that can help you grow your knowledge base and further your understanding. There’s almost no subject about which you can’t find at least one good book that can broaden your insights and deepen your understanding.

9. Attend a conference, take a course, or pursue more formal education. When you want to get more serious about expending your knowledge in certain areas, see what conferences might be available that are hosted by experts on the subject. You can take a course at your local community college to expand your knowledge, and if beneficial, even pursue a certificate or degree to more significantly build your knowledge and understanding in a variety of areas.

10. Subscribe. An easy way of having beneficial information flowing consistently to you is to subscribe to sources you can learn from such as magazines or journals, weekly email letters, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, newsletters, webinars, and other types of publications and broadcasts. These are usually reasonably priced and many are free.

These 10 suggestions are just SOME of the ways you can grow in knowledge. You expand the possibilities in your life when you commit to being a lifelong student. Don’t miss out on some of the best opportunities you might experience because you lacked the knowledge to take advantage of them or even to create them.

Scotty