Knowledge Without Application is Stupidity in Disguise

Knowing how to fly is not the same as flying.

As I was sitting in Sunday morning bible study this past Sunday, our teacher asked the following intriguing question:

“What’s the difference between being taught the ways of God and walking in the ways of God?”

At first, it seems like a pretty easy question to answer. I wanted to blurt out an answer, but instead sat thinking for the rest of the class what the main difference is. When God gave me the answer He knew I would resonate with, I immediately began relating it to not only my daily walk with the Lord, but also my business life.

For me, here’s the answer to the question. Being taught the ways of God means we know what God expects of us and we know we’ll be blessed if we obey Him. Walking in the ways of God, on the other hand, is the act of applying that knowledge and doing our best to hold up to our end of the deal.

As I began to think about this (later Sunday afternoon, not during class), I realized that this concept applies to any part of lives and not just our spiritual journey.

When it comes to marketing our businesses, for example, we can spend all kinds of time reading marketing books and the e-zines we subscribe to, listening to teleseminars, and going to marketing conferences and workshops all over the world, but if we never begin to apply the things we’ve learned, I would question whether we’ve really learned anything at all.

In order to really know something, we have to have applied it and be able to discuss, even if just with ourselves, whether or not it works, why it works, and what might make it work better. If we can’t do that, do we really know the things we claim to know? My answer is a resounding, “No.”

What do you think?

~ by jlstanfield7 on May 26, 2009.