Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. - Psalm 119:18 (ESV)
Few things are more gratifying to small group leaders than those times when a student’s face lights up with the thrill of sudden comprehension. Their voices go higher, their eyebrows rise, and there is often the hint of a smile. They did not understand, they did not comprehend, but they do now. It is a good thing to see.
Shared Wonder
As the psalm above indicates, leaders are looking for more than intellectual curiosity. We want students to understand things that only God can make them able to understand. We are not trying to impress students with fancy or impressive doctrine. Somehow, that puts leaders in the position of making it about them. But to behold “wondrous things” is a different experience. We do not tend to be proud of a wondrous thing because it is something that is beyond everyone who beholds it, leader and student alike.
The psalm above acknowledges God’s role in making a person able to comprehend the wonders of God’s Word as the revelation of Himself. There will be, then, limits to how much leaders can help. Small group leaders cannot open blind eyes or transform hearts. They can, however, talk in such a way as to clear away misconceptions and present the students with doctrine as clearly as possible. The goal cannot be to make students understand, but it can be to clarify ideas as sharply as possible so that all that is left is for God to open their eyes to make them able to see.
What leaders seek, then, is a shared experience. It is not that leaders have never seen the things before, but that they have the pleasure of sharing a transcendent experience with students who have never seen it before. It is not dissimilar to the feeling of driving to a rural place and showing someone the night sky in all its starry brilliance. You may have seen it before, but it never gets old, and there is the additional pleasure of sharing the wonder with someone else for the first time.
It can seem like we are getting nowhere when students do not seem to comprehend what we are saying. But lack of comprehension is not necessarily a bad thing. There are many reasons a student may have difficulty comprehending an idea or topic, and only a few are the kinds to avoid.
There are few things that are so complex that a student is unlikely to be able to follow the discussion. And even in the cases where they cannot, it is normally only a matter of time before they are able to comprehend the ideas. As they mature, we have given them a kind of discussion to look forward to.
Understanding Obstacles
What should a leader do with students who claim they are too dim to comprehend something they should be able to comprehend? Generally, topics do not need to be “dumbed down” for students. Small group leaders need to focus instead on simplifying by breaking down larger composite ideas into smaller and simpler ones. There are two things for a leader to keep in mind: one is irony, and the other is effort.
By irony, I mean that it is ironic that a student who claims to be too dim to understand things well would also claim to understand what is too hard for them and what is not. That is an impressive thing to know about oneself! They are simultaneously claiming to be too dim to comprehend something most can comprehend while also comprehending something that most people don’t have a good sense of, namely, their own limits. How do they know? What gives them the insight into themselves to know that about themselves? The answer is ¨nothing.¨ There is almost always no good reason that the students cannot comprehend what is being said. The fault may lie with the student, with the leader, or both. Of course, the leaders should seek to discern between the two and address anything in themselves that makes it difficult for the students. Of that more later. This leads to the second thing a leader should keep in mind, and it is perhaps the most common reason students claim they cannot comprehend. That reason is effort.
By effort, I mean that students who claim to be too dim to understand something are often using inability as a cover for lack of effort. They are in effect saying, “I don’t understand already, so I can’t understand.” That logic does not follow. The first premise does not necessarily lead to the second. A does not imply B. It is of the utmost importance that leaders communicate by word and example that understanding is often a result of effort. Understanding does not come by instantaneous and uncaused moments of inspiration. Understanding generally is a result of sustained effort at making the right connections between ideas we already hold and new or different ideas that do not seem to fit. It is like those times when we are putting together something like Lego kit or an article of furniture, or anything that requires assembly, and we hold a piece in our hands that does not obviously belong anywhere.
Personally, I had that very experience the morning of the day that I write this. I saw a picture of what the thing should look like, and I compared it to what was in my hands. As I looked at both, I eventually saw that one of the pieces in the picture was not in the orientation that I thought it was. I experienced that familiar rush of understanding in my mind as I removed, turned, and replaced one piece in my hand, then completed the assembly just as the picture showed. Many students give up immediately upon noticing that what they have or think is not the same or does not fit with the idea being presented. They claim they cannot understand, when what they really mean, whether they know it or not, is that they do not see the point in making the effort.
The kind of lack of comprehension to avoid is the kind that leaves the student believing that they are too unintelligent to comprehend something. Some students express a belief that they are somehow beneath the level of those whom they perceive to be able to follow the conversation and even to contribute to it. Most of the time that I have seen it, this has been a ridiculous conclusion on the part of the student. The students have no good reason to believe they are somehow “less than” the other students whom they deem smarter.
Our Enemies, Our Selves
There is one thing that is very important for leaders to understand about themselves regarding the problem of students believing they cannot comprehend something. Leaders need to learn to be aware of those times when they are not communicating clearly. It is one of the most common problems, and also one of the easiest to fix. However, the students cannot be expected to do it. This is the responsibility of the leaders. If leaders are unclear in what they are trying to communicate, the students must be forgiven for not understanding what is being said. It is often the case that the problem is not in the students’ ability to comprehend, but in the leader’s ability to be comprehensible.
A mark of a good communicator, surely, must be humility, which includes a disposition by the leaders to admit when they are unclear. Humility helps leaders to be willing to think about what they are saying and to restate, backtrack, or take back what they are saying. If leaders will work on communicating clearly and clearing confusion of their own creation, they will more likely have success in helping students to comprehend what is being discussed.
Conclusion
As leaders leverage students’ lack of comprehension, they can keep in mind that it is God who must open their eyes to behold the wonders of His Word. However, students’ lack of comprehension can indicate where leaders can provide clarity, making the line between what students can understand intellectually and what they appreciate or value worshipfully clearer. Leaders cannot “make” students appreciate God, but leaders can clear away confusing or mixed up doctrinal ideas that unnecessarily obscure their understanding of Him. All the time, the prayer is that God will open their eyes, that they might behold wondrous things out of His law.