Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Good morning from Colorado!
Sometimes we can spend so much time thinking we are failing that we never stop to ask whether we actually understand the assignment.
I learned that lesson in a philosophy class. Looking back now, I have to laugh because I took that class more than once. I finally passed it with a low C, but I couldn’t understand why I was having such a hard time.
A couple of doors down from me lived a very interesting man. He was a white, single man who was a little different, but if you spoke to him, he would talk with you. In the summer, he would sometimes sit on his roof at night looking at the stars. He had turned his garage into a woodshop where he built double basses and played music on the weekends.
One day, I was outside and saw him in his garage, so I simply stopped by. There wasn’t any special reason for the visit. We started talking, and our conversations had a way of making complicated things seem simple.
I eventually told him about my philosophy class and how I was failing it again. He asked me a simple question: “Why are you having trouble understanding someone else’s opinion?”
I remember being shocked. I hadn’t realized that was what philosophy was asking me to do!
I wasn’t necessarily incapable of learning the material. I simply didn’t understand what I was supposed to be learning. Once I understood the assignment, the subject made much more sense.
Life can be like that, too. We can look at a difficult season and immediately decide that we are failing. But perhaps God is teaching us something we haven’t recognized yet. Maybe the setback is teaching patience. Maybe the closed door is redirecting us. Maybe the person we least expected to learn from becomes the teacher we needed.
Sometimes the teacher really does appear when the student is ready to learn.
So before you decide that you’re failing, stop and ask yourself: “What am I supposed to learn from this?”
You may discover that the situation hasn’t changed, but your understanding of it has. And sometimes, that’s where faith begins.
I’ll see you tomorrow for another 15 Minutes with God.
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