“For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.” — Proverbs 2:6 (KJV)
I teach fifth-grade math, and one instructional technique I have utlized is productive struggle. Math is a subject that is learned through repetition, recognizing patterns, and understanding procedures. In long division, for example, you have to understand each step of the process and know when and how to apply it.
Productive struggle happens when you work through a difficult problem instead of immediately being given the answer. It is not struggling to the point of exhaustion or discouragement. Rather, it is working through your errors, figuring out what you did wrong, trying again, and eventually overcoming the difficulty. The "struggle" itself becomes part of the learning process.
However, many of my students do not like engaging in productive struggle. They give up too easily and would rather have someone give them the answer. Some become impatient and think that if they do not understand something on the first try, something must be wrong with them or the material must simply be too difficult. What they don't yet understand is that sometimes the struggle is how you learn. Repetition, mistakes, correction, and another attempt are all part of developing mastery.
I am beginning to realize that the principle of productive struggle can also be applied to life in general.
In my own personal walk with God, I am learning that God rarely just “gives me the answer.” Many times, the answer is something I have to uncover through wisdom, observation, experience, and circumstances. Sometimes making a decision does not involve receiving a supernatural confirmation that you have chosen the one “correct” path. Most of the time there is not just one correct path, there may be several correct paths, you just choose the one most suitable for you.
For example, suppose you are looking for a job in banking, and you pray, “Lord, where should I work?” God may not tell you outright which bank to choose because that decision may actually be yours to make. Instead, you might encounter employees from different banks, research their workplace cultures, compare salaries and benefits, consider the commute, learn about opportunities for advancement, and eventually have enough information to determine which bank is the best fit for you.
Yet sometimes we expect everything in life to come through revelation. We expect God to send us a dream telling us to work at Chase Bank, followed by a prophecy confirming the dream, and perhaps another “sign” assuring us that we heard God correctly.
But what if God has already given us what we need to make the decision?
I feel that the Body of Christ has elevated revelation, prophecy, and supernatural knowledge above wisdom.
We can become so preoccupied with receiving information from the spiritual realm that we overlook the wisdom available right in front of us. We ask God to reveal things that we may be perfectly capable of researching, observing, reasoning through, and deciding for ourselves.
Most situations in life will require wisdom more often than supernatural revelation.
Wisdom requires us to think. It requires us to observe patterns, learn from mistakes, seek appropriate counsel, consider consequences, gather information, and then make a decision. And sometimes we will make the wrong decision, learn something from it, adjust, and choose differently the next time.
Perhaps that, too, is productive struggle.
Just as I cannot give my students every answer and still expect them to develop mathematical reasoning, perhaps spiritual maturity does not come from receiving an answer from God for every decision. Maybe part of growing in wisdom is learning how to take what God has already placed before us, our minds, experiences, knowledge, opportunities, discernment, and free will, and actually use them.
Sometimes the lesson is not hidden in the answer God gives us.
Sometimes the lesson is in learning how to arrive at an answer ourselves.
“The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going.” — Proverbs 14:15 (KJV)
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