Receiving Instruction

Fear of the LORD is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

Proverbs 1:7

Instruct the wise, and they will be even wiser. Teach the righteous, and they will learn even more.

Proverbs 9:9

Receiving instruction or taking correction is a blow to pride or arrogance. Our natural impulse is to resist and to be a know-it-all. But those who are wise welcome instruction and are trained by correction.

God loves us too much to leave us in our ignorance or to let us stay on a plateau and become satisfied with less than all he has for us. As the model parent, he instructs us, his children, and trains us and challenges us to grow: “People who accept discipline are on the pathway to life, but those who ignore correction will go astray” (Proverbs 10:17).

Where is God giving instruction to you right now? Is it coming through a source whose influence you resent or resist? Is God calling you to lay aside pride or stubbornness to receive his teaching? When you find yourself in such a situation, you have a choice to make: do you choose to protect your pride, or do you choose to listen and grow wiser?

God promises that when we accept instruction we will “learn even more,” and our lives will be richer for it. Only fools would sacrifice wisdom for the sake of pride.

Father, help me to accept your training, no matter how it comes. If I need to humble myself to receive wisdom, then may I quickly bow at your feet. Even when I think myself unfairly criticized, teach me to set aside my resistant pride and look for any kernel of truth in the correction.

It could be a sign of pride in your life if a word of reproof or admonition is not able to be received with the same grace, whether it be given by the poorest of saints or the most educated person.

John Bunyan(1628–1688), English writer and preacher