What Makes Anyone Skillful?
I saw a post that said, “A calm sea doesn’t make a skilled sailor”. I’ve heard people in the Body of Christ essentially say the same thing. It’s been taught in the church that we grow through our sufferings and trials. If that’s so, how come the people that don’t know God aren’t spiritual giants? For that matter, why isn’t the church the spiritual giant on the earth? It’s because it’s not trials and suffering that brings us to a higher spiritual plane. It is our knowledge of the Word of God, the Bible, and our skillful use of His Word that causes us to triumph over whatever trial or suffering that can come against us. If a sailor isn’t trained to be skilled in navigating the sea, how to sail his ship, what to do in an emergency, etc, when he gets in the storm, he’ll be a dead sailor when the storm is done. It’s not the trial or the suffering that makes us skillful. It’s the applying of the principles we’ve learned over and over and over until they are second nature. Then when the storm comes, it’s so engrained in the sailor that he carries out his duties as practiced. No fear. It’s automatic. So it should be with us.
Several years ago the Lord impressed on me to pray in the Spirit every day as I walked the dogs. For 3 weeks I felt this urgency to pray in the Spirit. It was to prepare me for what was to come. I also spent a great deal of time studying the Word of God, and am skilled in Spiritual warfare. The day the storm satan had for us was here. My husband had a medical emergency. I was ready. I was calm. I had God’s wisdom, and strength to weather skillfully through a long and difficult storm. Our church also stood with us in faith for his complete healing. I believe my husband is alive and well today because God is faithful to His Word, and our church and I were ready to fight the fight of faith, to holdfast against the enemy’ ‘and to standfast until we saw the victory that was promised, to manifest.
Preparation and practice are the keys to success in any walk of life– military, Christianity, as a doctor or nurse, etc. How would you perform as a sailor, doctor, nurse, or soldier, if you knew nothing of the duties of that profession, and you never practiced sailing a ship, doing a surgery, starting an IV, or shooting a gun. So let’s not o looking for a storm as a Christian, but let’s start studying God’s Word and becoming skillful in implementing the Word and the weapons of our warfare. Let’s do this to prepare for a successful future in every area of our lives regardless of the storms.
Hebrews 5:12-14Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
12 For even though by this time you ought to be teaching others, you actually need someone to teach you over again the very first principles of God’s Word. You have come to need milk, not solid food.
13 For everyone who continues to feed on milk is obviously inexperienced and unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness (of conformity to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action), for he is a mere infant [not able to talk yet]!
14 But solid food is for full-grown men, for those whose senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good and noble and what is evil and contrary either to divine or human law.
2 Timothy 2:15Jubilee Bible 2000
15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that has nothing to be ashamed of, rightly dividing the word of truth.