Five Qualities of Lifelong Learners

What are some characteristics of people who are lifelong learners?

1. Lifelong learners intend to grow, develop, and mature. I have found that much learning is "on purpose." Not all of us learn in the same way. However, I do believe that we are at an advantage when we desire to learn and intend to learn.

2. Lifelong learners know that there are many, many ways to learn. For example, I have learned much from reading. I can point to several biographies and a few other books as well that have been important in my growth and development. We also learn from people. This morning I had breakfast with one of the most gifted people I have ever known. For many years my friend has asked me important questions that have caused me to think about my life and about the way I minister.

3. Lifelong learners are humble. It is a good thing to learn from leading experts, top professors, and prolific authors. However, am I willing to learn from one of my peers? Am I willing to learn from one who has less experience or formal education than I? Am I willing to learn from someone who is younger than I am? Am I willing to learn from one I have helped to mentor? (See Cliff Barbarick’s excellent post.) Humility means that I could be wrong about something. Humility is to acknowledge that I may know very little, if anything, about a particular area of life or work and that I am willing to listen.

4. Lifelong learners have learned and are learning. (I read this somewhere but at the moment the source is unknown.) There is nothing arrogant about acknowledging that I have learned something. I have lived, thought, and studied for a number of years and I can honestly say that I have learned a few things about life and ministry. At the same time, I continue to learn. I don’t think that one ever arrives.

5. Lifelong learners maintain a healthy curiosity about life, God, and the things that matter most. So often men and women lose any sense of curiosity and settle for their self-imposed ruts. On the other hand, those who remain curious are willing to experience something different. Perhaps I listen to music I don’t normally listen to (easily possible if you use Pandora). Maybe I watch a television program about a part of the world about which I know nothing. I might take a different route home from work. At the restaurant, perhaps I could order something different. I have found that making such choices nurtures my curiosity. This curiosity is something I don’t want to lose.

What about you? What do you do to intentionally live as a lifelong learner?

I realised that I'm not that hungry to learn. In a way, I think my mind and my thinking lack depth. Breadth, perhaps it's there - but depth? It's God's will that as a Christian, my love abounds more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.

I lack hunger and eagerness to learn. Oh Lord, increase in my heart a holy hunger to want to learn more from the little things of everyday, the people I come across - to open bigger and bigger my eyes in childlike wonder and amazement to learn.

Lord, Teacher, give me a heart that yearns to learn. Like that of a little child. Isn't that the Way of the Kingdom? To be like a little child again.

Father, give me sight to see the light
That I may do what in Your eyes is right

Lead me in the way I should go
In every step Your Way to follow

Give me a heart to feel
So that I can truly be a person real

Bring me to where each day Your wonders are
To stand, see, smell glories that stretch afar

Give me an instructed tongue and kind lips
To know the Word that sustains the soul deep

And grant me ears that ache to draw near
To that still, small voice that is so dear.