Learning

I’m coming to a point in my walk when I look back and see this pattern of sneering self-superiority. Many men can authoritatively attack inadequate doctrines or ideologies without developing this trait, but it seems that I have a difficult time doing so. Several things I’ve learned in the last few months:

• Assumption is dangerous. To initially assume  instead of trying to understand what someone is trying to communicate will invoke wrong responses. I have trigger words/phrases like feeling, experience, God loves ALL people, or free will. When I hear these words, I stop listening and formulate my strategy for defending the omnipotent God.
• I miss opportunities to get to root issues with people by focusing on semantics and surface theological problems.
• Sarcasm and humility don’t coexist well in my life. One always suffocates the other. I’m not ready to say that all sarcasm is bad (I see it in Scripture) but I can say that I haven’t found that I use much of the good kind.
• I think calling myself Reformed or Calvinist is unhelpful. It can become a source of identity rather than a way to describe what I believe. I have always been annoyed when I would tell people that I’m Calvinist/Reformed and they would answer, “Well, I just believe the Bible” or “Well, I’m just a Christian.” There is an appropriate rebuke that can be gleaned from those responses.
• If God karate-chopped every golden calf in my life in one conversation…I’d be a spiritual vegetable. In Jude, God says, “Have mercy on those who doubt.” If the Holy Spirit (the unveiler of Truth) directs us to have mercy then we should not be afraid of allowing some lesser idols to survive while we get closer to the idol Mothership.
• Many (most) people do not receive truth in the same package I like to receive it.
• Gentleness is a virtue that I have not even begun to tap into.