Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to wake up, look up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch. And in today's episode, we're asking the question, is struggle a gift? Now this is gonna sound like a parenting podcast, and I have something to say to parents, but don't turn it off if you're not a parent.

This is bigger than that. It's based on an article I read this week about a theory in education called the learning pit. It's a theory advanced by a guy named James Nottingham. And it basically makes this point that the best way for children to learn is to be introduced to a challenge and then left to wrestle or struggle with that challenge. That's the learning pit.

You gotta take a child down into the depths of what they don't know, of what they need to struggle with, of what they need to wrestle with, and leave them there to figure it out on their own instead of rushing in to help. That's because kids learn through the struggle, through the wrestling. They have to learn to make the answers for themselves, to find the pathway to what is right and what is helpful. The problem is that most adults, especially parents, tend to step in too soon, at least according to Nottingham. They see a kid stepping into the pit, and they rush in there to meet them and take them out.

They develop a different pathway for a child, which is when you don't know the answer, I'll give it to you. When you don't know how to do something, I'll do it for you. And the long term consequences of this is that they end up pretty helpless, not just not knowing how to do that thing, but not knowing how to actually deal with adversity, how to actually deal with the struggles of life. Look. There are massive parenting implications here.

And and if you are a parent, let me just remind you of this, that the Bible makes pretty clear in the second chapter of the Bible, Genesis two, that the goal of parenting is that you're you're preparing to let your children go. Keep in mind that in Genesis two, God says of about Adam and Eve that for this reason, a man will leave his family and a woman hers, and the two will become one. You are raising children to leave. And with that in mind, it means that your ultimate goal is what's helpful to guide them to end to independence, and what's harmful is what keeps them from independence. I think sometimes we think the goal of parenting is that they're happy or that they're always healthy or always safe.

Those things sometimes can actually be the obstacle of what we really need to be accomplishing, which is probably why our culture is dealing with the prolonged adolescence we see in men and women in their twenties. But forget parenting for a second. Because let me tell you this. In the New Testament, what we see for each one of us, parent or not, man or woman, young or old, is that God uses the learning pit. I couldn't help but chuckle when I read about James Nottingham's theory because the Bible's been saying this again for thousands of years.

Consider, for example, that in Hebrews 12, we're told that God introduces discipline into our lives, difficulty, struggle. And it's unpleasant in the moment, but the writer of Hebrews says it actually takes us somewhere great. Think about James in chapter one when he says count it as joy brothers. When you encounter trials of various kinds because the testing of your faith leads to perseverance. What both those passages are saying is that God is refining us in the pit.

That as a good parent, God will let us struggle. He will let us wrestle because it's usually there that we actually change, that we actually become like what God wants us to be. And if those verses maybe don't resonate, think about it in narrative form. Think about the struggle of Abraham with infertility, of Joseph with being sold into slavery, of Jonah sitting in the fish. The point is that throughout the Bible, God uses the learning pit to shape and mold men and women into who he wants them to be.

Sometimes, when we engage difficulty in our lives, we tend to ask the question, god, where are you? But what if instead of seeing difficulty as evidence of God's absence, we began to believe that he's just on the periphery the way any good parent is. And he's saying to us, struggle with it. Think through it. Take what you already know about me, about what I've told you is right and true, and apply it in this situation.

Listen. God will be there when you skin your knee. God will be there when you need a shoulder to cry on, but a good dad lets his kids struggle because the learning pit is where we become who we need to be. Maybe today you need to hear this. God isn't absent in your struggle, but he is letting you become who he wants you to be.

Lean into the learning pit and watch who he helps you to book up. Hey. Thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!