Unlearning

When it comes to faith one of the hardest things for me to do is to unlearn something that I have taken to heart. Sometimes it is something that I am certain is true but later find evidence to the contrary. Other times a person that I respect tells me something and presents it as a truth they have learned over a span of time. Later, I might discover that what they taught me was true for them but not necessarily true for me. Both of these are different than just learning something new that can be added into my knowledge bank. I actually have to unlearn something, to untangle it from all the other thoughts that it touches and (in some cases) to repent from the ways in which I have passed on the erroneous information when I have taught others.

When I was in seminary one of the preaching professors told us that the time we spent reading the Bible as pastors didn’t count as time spent in personal devotion to God. He told us that we had to reserve time each day for personal Bible reading. I took him at his word. After all, here was a white-haired elder of the church who had spent much of his life teaching people how to be pastors. His soft-spoken manner emanated nothing but concern for our personal, professional and spiritual well-being.  I assumed that this advice was learned during his many years preparing his own sermons and classes and I was eager to put his wisdom to work in my own life.

Over the years I tried any number of personal devotional practices in my life in an effort to be a more faithful person. I bought and used countless devotional books centered around various themes. I spent early mornings, afternoons and evenings trying to find a time that I am less likely to skip and more likely to feel a connection to God. I tried doing devotions with my wife or with friends and colleagues as a way of being accountable. I tried reading short passages and meditating on them. I tried reading three chapters a day in order to get all the way through the Bible in one year. I signed up for email devotions to be sent to me and I had daily readings texted to my phone hoping that random reminders in the day might work for me better than my own memory or commitment.

None of these have worked. Occasionally I have done them with some regularity for a while. At those times I feel good about my faith and my faithfulness. Eventually, however, I fall away from them. I get bored. I find myself falling asleep instead of meditating. I find an excuse to put it off until later but never actually get to it. At those times I feel like a failure. I wonder about my faith and my commitment to God if I can’t even do something as easy as spend 15 minutes reading the Bible every day.

On the other hand, whenever I am preparing for a sermon or for a class that I will be teaching and I have the opportunity to dig into the text, the original languages, the context and culture of what was written, I find myself caught up in something that is alive. I can read what other people have to say about a particular text. Sometimes I will read that particular passage a dozen or more times in the course of a week or two. I will cross reference other passages. I will find myself thinking about it as I drive to the grocery store or as I am falling asleep at night. I will excitedly talk to others about what I am learning and discovering.

So why doesn’t this count as personal devotion? Is it possible that, for me, the Bible reading I do for my work is the same thing as my personal devotion? Maybe it wasn’t for my seminary professor and he needed to set aside a time for personal devotion. But why universalize his experience to every pastor or every person?

I’m not saying he shouldn’t have shared what he learned in his life. It would, however, have been so much more helpful for me if he had owned it as his experience and encouraged me to find something that worked for me instead of saying his way was something we had to do. Perhaps I would still have spent almost 20 years searching for something that worked for me but I would have done so with much less guilt and shame.

I don’t hold any ill will toward my old professor. I took what he told me to heart and tried unsuccessfully to shape my life around his advice. Now I am trying to unlearn that lesson and accept the fact that I am faithful in my own way. I am faithful in the way that I was created to be faithful. I find joy and relief and freedom in that. That’s how I know it’s right for me.