How easy is it to learn how to do something? A skill, habit or cultural tradition? Junk food, gossip sticky addictions. It’s easy to do what is wrong; isn’t it?
However, a stretch harder to practice what is good.
The ease of learning is so much more inviting and easy to follow when it starts on new ground. When you have acquired wrong information or knowledge, lies that were wrapped up in the honey of truth, how do you instinctively react? Well I know I used to hate it, my cognitive dissonance would fire off and I would become defensive, destructive and dismissive.
During a long journey into this life, the ups and downs of decisions, I needed to discover that we are constantly in the school of unlearning.
Perhaps a bit far-fetched but rings true is the great subtle deception of the education institution, through studying and graduation. We think that we have somehow no need for learning and acquiring knowledge as we’ve spent over two decades in the academic acquisition centre of our society. However, unlearning knowledge in the school of life itself is very important.
We may miss the teaching and instruction that God wants to bring through it, nonetheless, they still happen.
Conformed
A scripture that really helps me navigate this constant reality is Romans 12:2,
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what [is] that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
This one I hold most dear to my soul. It is all about unlearning habits taken on from our interaction and dealings with the worldly system around us. The views on sexuality, gender, marriage, parenting, morality, character and even worship. We are constantly and enthusiastically imprinted upon, through obvious and subtle influences.
Our views and identity are challenged daily, but many of us find an escape through avoidance or ignorance. We need to keep unlearning as we learn. Replacement education through scripture.
Why mix old with new!?
Look at it this way, there is no point in picking up a book to learn a new way to cook if you are not willing to replace the old way. You will try and use an old method in the new method and most likely come out with something disappointing.
New wine in old wineskins had been stretched to the maximum or become fragile as wine had fermented inside them; using them again, therefore, risked bursting them.
Let’s challenge and be challenged, learn and unlearn, and always be willing to be changed by the word of God. Why God’s word? Because it is the best template and instruction for us to thrive in life and grow in a Godly way. The Jesus template.
The formation of our mind is made up of habitual pathways. We do what we have always done to get the job done. Once we have established a pathway in our mind on how to perform a task most effectively, we will set it in our mind like a habit and then reference it each time we want to execute it.
Rarely do we look for refinement to learn a new way.
Formations need to be challenged.
Word of God Mindset
The way you pray, study God’s word, interact with other believers, and our treatment of secular persons and ideals. We need to be constantly refined by God’s word and allow it to form fresh and new thinking in us daily.
God’s Word is the best place to learn and unlearn. It is the wrench that tightens and loosens, the hammer that knocks in and hooves out the nail. Let us not only read it to find out where to go and what to do, but let us find out what to remove and habits to break. Be transformed.
At times we find it hard to know what to do, or how to approach a situation. A disagreement, argument, confrontation or responsibility. . . Let’s go to God’s word and unlearn the worldly habits that grieve our souls and lead us down a road of striving to a place of unlearning those habits to learn what God’s active will is.
The walk with God to know who he is and what his plan is for you today.
