Me, Chief Learner

I'm an English writing major. Surprise! As such, I often feel ashamed about making spelling errors and punctuation errors and word usage faux pas. I once confused exotic with erotic. I'm not always sure if I should use an em dash or a parenthesis. I had to google the singular form of parentheses and then I spelled it wrong three times. 

I also write poetry. But it was only recently that I learned what kind of poetry I write. It's called free verse. But I couldn't tell you how many lines a sonnet has or a limerick or . . . uh . . . I can't think of another type of poetry, so never mind. The point is I'd rather not say I'm a poet. I dabble in poetry. That's all. 

I'm willing to bet this is true of most professions. If a biologist really understood how much he has yet to learn in his field, would he dare call himself an expert in Biology? If a cook really knew how many recipes he's never made, wouldn't he think of himself as an apprentice rather than a master chef?

Who labels themselves as an expert anyways? It seems presumptuous. I wonder if that's just a title we give others because one person knows more than most on a particular topic. Or we give the title to ourselves because we'd like others to think we know a lot. Yes, that must be it. An "expert" is merely someone who knows more about something than most people. 

But if an algebra student does better than anyone else in her class, we wouldn't call her an algebra expert. We'd just say she was the top of her class. The title "expert" seems to be a misnomer. I like Chief Learner better.

If a Chief Learner of Diseases said they thought another wave of COVID was about to sweep through the world, we'd probably all listen and say, "Well, that's interesting. You are the top of your class in this field, and you might be right." We might even prepare for this possible next wave of COVID. In fact, we'd be foolish not to. But if the Chief Learner of Diseases was wrong, we wouldn't pull out our hair crying, "But I trusted you!" or shake our fists and scream, "You liar! You deceived us!" We'd just say, "Well, he's just learning."

Now if a Chief Learner insisted he was absolutely right and couldn't possibly be wrong, if he lead a great many ignorant people astray, that is another matter. We'd call that one a Pharisee, and the ignorant followers we'd call lost sheep. We must try very hard not to be like them, which means we must remember how much we don't know, and we must stop believing others know everything, even if they say they do.

Now, Christians are the Chief Learners of becoming holy, that is, we are at the forefront of transforming into the new men and women that God meant us to be. We must never deceive ourselves or others into believing that we're experts at this holy living. We, of all people, know how unholy we are because the more we look at God, the more we realize how far we are from reaching his holiness. 

We of all people know how many ways God reaches people, and thus, we don't need to insist that people find God our way. We of all people know that appearances can be deceiving, and so we can withhold judgement. We of all people can give grace to others for not being experts at loving because we know how unlike experts we ourselves are at this. And we of all people needn't die of shame when we mess up because we know we're just learners.

To get a degree or masters or PhD isn't to become an expert, but merely to focus one's learning in a particular direction: towards sea turtles or residential law or nursing or business. Likewise to trust Christ is to become a learner of Christ and to set one's face towards God.