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By Dean Kelley

We lived on Rhein-Main Air Force Base in Germany. I was in second grade. There was an event that happened that year that I will always remember. 

I walked to school on base every day. I can still remember traveling through a walkway next to the deli and movie theatre on my way to school. 

I remember coming home for lunch one day really mad at my math teacher. She kept saying 3×0=0. It just didn’t seem right to my little second grade mind. 

My father was home that day. I came in complaining about my teacher. My father took me to the kitchen and grabbed his coffee pot and said, “Get that cup. Now, pour out of the coffee pot three times into the cup.” 

It was a rare time that his coffee pot was actually empty. I did as I was told. He then asked, “How much coffee is in the cup now?” I said, “There is no coffee in it.” He responded, “So, what is 3 times 0?” I said, very sheepishly, “0.”

I have never forgotten that lesson in all these years. While I learned that anything times zero is zero, I learned the more important lesson that I did not know everything, like I thought I did. 

I know I learned about multiplying by zero, but I also hope I learned that sometimes when I think I have all the answers that it is often not true. I hope I learned to listen and learn from others, and to be wise enough to know when to listen. 

The wise man of scripture wrote these words, “A wise man will hear and increase learning. And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel” (Proverbs 1:5). The prophet Jeremiah said, “O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself, It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). 

Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). 

Do you want to know how to live life, and how to get to heaven? Meet me at the cross and we can learn the way that leads to eternal life in Jesus.

Dean Kelly is minister at Highland Home Church of Christ.