I really wanted my daughter to learn Spanish in college. I had the goal to become fluent in Spanish by the time I graduated from college, but quickly abandoned my plans for more exciting electives. Unfortunately, my daughter seems to be following in my footsteps. She knows that Spanish is a good thing to learn, but there is so many other classes she wants to take. God has sent me on several mission trips to Spanish speaking countries and I wish that I could communicate better with the ones He sends me to serve. I haven’t been able to convince my daughter that she may find herself feeling the same way I do now and wish she had learned Spanish in college like her mother suggested.

Jesus wants to teach me a specific subject, but it isn’t my highest priority either. In fact, it seems pretty irrelevant to my life and ministry. It isn’t Spanish or even theology. Jesus wants me to learn to be gentle and humble in heart. Now that’s not a lesson that I want to sign up for right away. Learning gentleness is not so bad, but I definitely don’t want to learn humility. Humility implies humiliation and I’d rather learn how to avoid that.

Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30). Rest, I don’t mind learning rest. I think taking on Jesus’ yoke would be okay, but gentleness and humility, I could think of a lot better things I would want to learn first.

What if the heart of Jesus—gentleness and humility—is what is necessary to learn anything else? Think about it, how can I learn to love if I don’t have the heart of Jesus? How can I learn to manage my money, or even learn Spanish without gentleness and humility? The little advances I have made in the area of Spanish have been when I was willing to be humble and reveal how little I know just to learn a little more.

Perhaps Jesus is showing us that by focusing on learning gentleness and humility, we will naturally adopt all the other virtues we so desperately want. There is a plethora of lessons that evolve from a gentle and humble outlook. Perhaps someone who is gentle and humble has a starting place for deeper insight

Now that I stop and think about it, the heart of Jesus is gentle and humble. Way gentler and humble than I deserve. That is the same heart He wants me to have for others. What would happen in my life if I learned to have a heart like Jesus, gentle and humble? How would that increase everything else I learned in life? Maybe I would even suggest Spanish classes to my daughter in a different tone.