I suppose we do learn something new everyday… and while taking the girls to the zoo on Tuesday I discovered a new animal, the tree Kangaroo. Check out the picture or imagine Kanga’s Roo hanging out in a tree.

But the fact that I had never heard of tree kangaroos brought back a conversation on Sunday lunch. In the conversation some high school guys were discussing random facts. One mentioned how his dinosaur knowledge peaked at age sixth and now he could not remember anything. His brain was instead filled with derivatives and protoplasm…

All this led me to ask, why do we learn what we learn in school? I mean I graduated high school with five hours of calculus… for what? To balance my check book. What I could really use, at least on Tuesday, was a good zoology class. For that matter, where was the basic home repair class? That would save me a bundle more than Physics AP ever has!

Taking a step back, I am not railing against school or suggesting student should stop doing their homework. Instead I am pointing out the reality that school is part of the system, the beginning designed to propel us into the system of adult life. But it is an imperfect system. On a basic level this imperfection is seen in the reality that much of what we learn becomes useless after the test (hence 5th graders can outsmart adults). But there is a more fundamental flaw.

This system is designed around individual achievement and hence it creates winners and losers. More importantly, insiders, who are able to work the system, achieve success in the system, but outsiders are left as continual losers (hence systemic poverty).

My point? Realize that we are working in a system that is not God’s. Winners in the world’s system, arriving with the right house, family, and job, are not necessarily winners in life. Only those who live in the system of God can become a winner in life. So it is just as possible for the high school drop out to lead the successful life – the kingdom life (remember Christ was homeless).

Too often we use the wrong measuring sticks. Understand the child of God is not the best or brightest or wealthest… instead the child is the one who follows… where ever He may lead.

Just as I am, without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me,
and that thou bidst me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.