Old Dogs and New Tricks

Tim Oakes
Jun 23, 2017
2 min read

Hello Friends,

As I grow older, it’s so easy to start thinking back about the past. Things I had the opportunity to do, the missed opportunities that cause me to wonder how things would have been different if I had taken a different path, and wondering why I didn’t take better care of myself when I was younger.

In our Sunday school lesson last week was a quote that I thought was so instructive. It said, “The only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.” There is so much that I’ve learned over my lifetime that I hope to be able to impart to my family and the church family here at Whitmell. But unfortunately, too many times we must learn from our own mistakes instead of learning from others.

Nowhere is this clearer than when we look at the Bible. While I think I have learned so much from my life experiences, the reality is that it is entirely possible that I learned the wrong lessons. I could be like the scientist who used a frog to conduct an experiment.

He placed the frog behind a line, said “Jump frog, jump!”, and then measured how far it jumped. He recorded in his log that the frog jumped 1.2 meters. He then removed one of the frog’s legs, placed it behind the line, saying, “Jump frog, jump!” Once again he measured the distance the frog jumped and recorded that with three legs the frog jumped 0.8 meters.

He then removed a second leg and conducted the experiment again, saying, “Jump frog, jump!” This time he recorded that the frog jumped 0.4 meters. He then removed the third leg, once again proceeded with the experiment, saying, “Jump frog, jump!” and found that the frog jumped 0.2 meters.

Finally, he removed the fourth leg, placed the frog behind the line, saying, “Jump frog, jump!” and nothing happened. Once again he said, “Jump frog, jump!”, “Jump frog, jump!” He then recorded in his log, “When the fourth leg of the frog was removed, the frog lost his hearing.”

We as humans can come to the wrong conclusions, but we have the opportunity to learn from the wisdom and experience found in God’s word, the Bible.

Wouldn’t it be so much wiser for us to learn from the examples taught in scripture than to go through the consequences of mistakes that could have been avoided?

I’m so thankful for all the trouble I didn’t get into because I learned true wisdom from God’s word. And I also regret things I and those around me had to suffer when I acted based only upon what I thought was right instead of what God says is right.