People who grow for a lifetime have a trait I have recognized. They distrust their own experience. Most of us clamor for security the older we get. But there are the creative few who keep challenging themselves. Yesterday’s insights just don’t work for these folks. They don’t just have a zesty desire for the future or faddish ideas. They literally don’t trust their own experience. They are the biggest skeptics about what they have held as true.
This requires a gut-wrenching ruthlessness about one’s own life. I have found new things every year I once believed that I am pretty sure either never were true or just aren’t any longer. It takes an honest heart to say, “you know I just don’t believe that any longer.” Not that I am espousing relativism. I am however questioning the real efficacy of experience.
I have been included in a few quests for truth with leaders where I was the oldest. They said they wanted to advantage themselves of my experience. I have had to break it to them that I didn’t trust myself. I felt all things should be regularly questioned.
But you can’t just stop at skepticism about yourself. You have to move on to being a forever dreamer and learner. Deconstructionist thinking has never really helped anyone to a great extent. But clear pursuits for new expeditions that enlighten are a gift.
Jesus said you couldn’t put new wine in old wine skins. Why not? Because the new wine will explode the skin. But he seemed to have encouraged putting old wine in new wine skins. It isn’t that the old lack significance.
It is just not always equipped for the present. I have been learning several new approaches to church life. I think I could lead in this new genre. I probably won’t though. I am finding I can take my learning’s from life, question them, and tuck them nicely in the new skins.
This doesn’t mean that the new is always best either. The new needs to be viewed with skepticism as well. All things must be rigorously tested. And many things have to be jettisoned to stay on track.
I have found that few people like to put themselves or their thoughts under intense scrutiny. We want to settle into a pattern and rest there. We get lazy. We get fearful. And we over-estimate our ability to wrestle with the new world.
I think there should be two college careers in every person’s life. One in there twenties to solidify solid thinking habits. Then another one at age forty-five to unlearn the way they have learned to think and learn new ways. I have often been surprised how those with post-graduate degrees are often those most stuck into their own experience.
We took a day as a staff and reviewed one another’s Meyer’s-Brigg’s personality profiles. I was reminded by my team that my INTJ profile reveals that I am skeptical of all ideas and even my own. So maybe my observation has most to do with the way I am wired.
I have thought about it though and decided my observation is true. Really growing people do distrust their experience. They examine it. They review and test what they think they know. They consider it as valuable to learn what they don’t know as it is to be certain of their proven insights. So distrust your experience and embrace some new pathways in life.
