Unlearning

This past year was really focused on learning - not just because I was at the ed school but personally in many areas of my life.

In learning, especially learning that leads directly to behavior change, there is often a lot of unlearning that first needs to be done. At the ed school they like to call it "conceptual change", or as I think of it, tearing down your old thoughts and rebuilding them again - different paths and different philosophies on that, but the root of it is twofold:

• One, that one must see the error of one's ways by seeing just how much it does not make sense.
  
• And Two, that this must arise from an "A-ha" moment, not simply from someone else's lecturing but from really thinking about one's own thoughts.
  

Anything else is likely to only be temporal and surface level, if not outright forced and often begrudgingly so.

I'm sure that spouses and parents can see this clearly, no ed school degree necessary haha

Every thought, every interaction, every response we have to a given situation, every thing that we let influence our lives - that all builds into the structure of our mental repertoire. Slowly, the brick and mortar of self-centeredness, self-sufficiency, and arrogance is scaffolded and fleshed out.

There's a lot yet to tear down. Wow, praise God, that His demolition of these Towers of Babel is loving, and His disciplines trustworthy and kind...

2 Corinthians 7:10

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

Jeremiah 17:9-10

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”

Sometimes I don't understand myself

Actually, make that a lot of the time..

Isn't it wonderful that we have a God who knows the depths of our hearts? Who sees everything, gross and disgusting and all, the things we may not yet see or understand or admit, yet still loves us so?

To be fully known and fully loved is something that I think every heart seeks but I also think so few really understand or get to experience. Maybe that is just the cynical part of me? God doesn't wish that any should perish [a], yet so often even we who have been bought with a price live as though we were not. Who can say that their heart is pure? [c]

I think I understand more and more Paul's laments of what I now see as utter despair in Romans 7. He cries out with such desperation, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" Can you hear the sorrow in his voice?

Maybe we need to be in such a place of desperation before we can understand the depth of what he says next. The Gospel, without an understanding of sin, is still the Gospel, in all the glory and majesty and awesomeness that it is. But who can accept it and its weight without that understanding of sin? And even as Christians, no matter how long a Christian, if we do not continually come to a place of this recognition, I think our faith can then teeter into the realms of self dependency, ungratefulness, salvation by works, and a whole other host of stuff..

Lord, please keep us at your feet, always, according to your mercy...

Thank you God

Before I forget

For late night emergency work crisis miracle remedies

That take 20 minutes rather than 6 hours.

Whew...

Psalm 1

Blessed is the man


who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, 
     nor stands in the way of sinners,
          nor sits in the seat of scoffers;




But his delight 
     is in the 
     law of the Lord,


          and on His law he 
          meditates
               day 
               and night. 




He is like a tree
     planted by 
     streams of water.     
          that yields its fruit in its season, 
          and its leaf does not wither;
     In all that he does, he prospers. 


The wicked are not so, 
     but are like chaff that the 
          wind 
               blows away.




Therefore 
     the wicked 
     will not stand 
          in the judgment,
     nor sinners 
          in the congregation of the righteous;


for the Lord knows 
     the way of the righteous,          
     but the way of the wicked will perish. 

Psalm 23

The Lord 
     is my shepherd;


          I shall not want.


He makes me 
     lie down
          in
          green pastures.

He leads me 
     beside 
       still waters.

          He restores my soul.


He leads me 
     in paths of 
       righteousness 
     for His name's sake.



Even though I walk 
     through the valley of the 
        shadow of death,



I will fear no evil,


          for 
          you 
          are
           with
             me;



Your rod 
     and 
         your staff, 


              they comfort me. 



You prepare a table 
     before me 

          in the presence of my enemies;



You anoint 
     my head 
          with oil;

               my cup overflows.


Surely 
          goodness 
          and 
          mercy 
     shall follow me 

               all the days of my life,




and I shall dwell in 
     the house of the Lord 
               forever.