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.

Let me start with that there are many ways to learn and one size does not fit all.  We know that as we watch some students excel and others struggle and fail when they both have the same aptitude to learn. In the corporate setting we need people to be continuous learners and we know that a classroom just doesn’t cut it.  So, how do build learning into how we work so that at all times we have people growing in their own way?  My buddy Fred is teaching now at the graduate level as part of his retirement time.  He loves it.  He especially likes that graduate students who have worked or are working now, respond best to what he uses; “Theories”, “Practices” and “War-Stories”.  It makes sense.  Theory without practice is book knowledge that goes nowhere.  Practices without examples from the trenches become experiments instead of something useful.  And one can’t find a war story without seeking them out or being there themselves. It’s a good process to think about when introducing anything new or wanting people to learn.  Give them some theory, define the practices (real work) and then underpin it all with the stories of successes, challenges and opportunities.

There is a nice parallel here for our faith and journey for purposed work.  We have our faith, which is not a theory, but in areas where have not stepped forward with our faith, it can be scary and we will run theoretical scenarios in our mind.  We need to know what those are and then we need to understand what might be the practices we would to employ.  And of course we are taught we are to never go it alone so we need to understand from others how they have handled being in the same situation.  When we follow this, we are learning and we are strengthening ourselves to be better equipped for God in our workplace.

Proverbs 2: 2-4 (New Living Translation)