“To thine own self be true” works if you never want to take a chance with life, create personal change, and improve. I guess. But knowing your base personality is vital to defining how you live life. It’s easy for me to pick up a specialty tool for one-time use and never need it again. On the flip side, I love to watch Instagram videos from engineering marvels making do with what they have on hand.
Do these videos make me better? Sure! It helps me think outside the proverbial box we all find ourselves locked within.
When I need to do something, I learn to watch YouTube (and their ilk) videos. Indeed someone somewhere has needed to do the same thing and was smart enough to record their effort and post it for the world to see!
You learn from others who show you
But you comprehend best from doing
Use what you have, or get the best you can afford
Regardless, put those tools to work!
This past weekend we visited our favorite little place near us with a small Saturday market, a few antique shops, and other miscellaneous places to browse. They all have a Stone Carvers workshop, keeping the craft alive the old-fashioned way. We’ve bought several pieces and have them displayed around the house. Even if I don’t buy anything, I love to step into the past and watch them work. Some of their tools they make themself.
Sound Advice, Perhaps For Me But Not For You
We loved to go to my Granddad’s farm, lake house, barn, and storage shop. He had all kinds of things just floating around. Those who lived through the depression saved everything, knowing that someday it may have a purpose. Even if you must re-purpose, you found salvation in those places some call junk yards.
One of the problems is taking those treasures with you as you move from town to town.
Maybe the better thought is learning how to do anything from nothing by using what you happen upon as you scavenge through your storage.
I just paused and thought through all my treasures in boxes, on shelves in the garage, and loaded away in file cabinets. What do I need the most? What could I weed through and thin out? Someone, somewhere, and sometime down the road (Grammarly doesn’t like this sentence, but I love to collect words no one else would keep!) needs these items, so why not share them at a yard sale and make some dough on the side?
What does your personality say about holding on to useless stuff you may need someday?
Some like a clean storage room, but I’m not like that. My mind flits from thought to thought through those loosely organized facts and memories. Wait. Trivial Pursuit, anyone? [Go ahead! Click the link! You know you want to!]
Study Tools
This brings me to my thought this morning—study tools. I have collected learning tools throughout the years, used them for the moment they were needed, and seldom discarded them. They are still in my storage bins. Will I ever need them again? Perhaps not, but I’m waiting for the time I can pass them forward to someone else.
My best study tool is my Bible. It’s been a constant in my life since nearly day one! I’m not the person who reads from beginning to end every year, but I’ve done it and will do it again. Instead, I’m a gleaner. I love to study a thought (event, person, place, or time) that covers many books within the covers of that lovely book we call the Bible. This creates an outline! The details are tucked away in my mind or some document I’m working on.
Do this often enough,
seeing the interconnectivity between the pages,
and you will better understand God’s plan!
What I found true when I was sixteen (sweetly, I think of myself) is the foundation on which I see the light of scripture today. 50+ years later, I’m still building on that foundation! [Read Here]
What if we took on the mindset of a researcher when we sit down with the Word, prepared our hearts when it is taught or preached, opened up our toolbox of possibilities, and let the Bible lead us forward?
How about you? What’s your favorite study tool when you begin to study the Word? I still like a good Strong’s Concordance to understand the history and meaning of the words used from an era long before our modern language. Give me a good Bible Dictionary to see the world alive with pictures and descriptions.
How about some good highlighters, page markers, or a journaling notebook to keep track of what you’ve learned?
I do most of my study online with tools like E-Sword (free), and I thoroughly enjoy my expensive Logos system sourced here in Washington State.
Mostly? I enjoy my hunger for the Word. The mind and spirit are the most incredible study tools you can pare with your tactile study tools when you focus on the Bible.
Here’s a question? What’s your favorite study tool when you glean the Word of God?
Finally…
This stone carving comes from broken pieces at the Ilwaco Lighthouse in Washington. A craftsman took a piece of brokenness and carved an image of the lighthouse they were repairing.
Tools and Training are nothing if they don’t produce something.