The Unlearning

One of the greatest mistakes we make when coming into greater faith is believing that there's so much we have left to learn about God. So much we have left to learn about faith. So much we have left to learn about life and living and loving. 

But God...is not something you learn. 

Learning puts all this pressure on you. Like all these things are just more things you have to remember. But God is not something you have to remember.

This world is something you have to forget.

See, you already know God. You are His created. The very breath of Him is in you; it is your breath. It's not that you need to know more about Him or more of Him. What you need to know is less of this world. 

Sometimes, I get a glimpse of what God wants me to be. And I wonder how I'm ever supposed to be those things. You probably have these moments, too. It's like I can't figure out how, in this body I live in, in this life I'm living, how I'm supposed to do these holy things. How I'm supposed to be this sacred thing. How I'm supposed to be...anything. And the more I understand what God wants from me, the more I realize that at my very depth, it's who I already am. What I need is to scruff off some of this stuff that sits on top of all that and start living from my depth. 

Living from your depth is not something you learn so much as you unlearn the shallow life.

You unlearn what it feels like to have your feet touch the bottom. There is no bottom here; the depth of your spirit is eternal. You unlearn what it feels like to be holding onto the rails. There are no rails here; the spirit of God surrounds and holds you. You unlearn what it's like to tread water. There's nothing to tread here; there's no sink or swim. There's only dive right in. 

Admit it: it's where you want to be anyway. God's just giving you permission to go there.

I'm not saying it's easy. It's not. This world has a certain thing it's come to expect of you, come to want of you. It's spent your whole life teaching you how to be here. It's a performance, really. You can't stop performing. But it's not who you are. 

That's what this world does. It teaches you to perform until you're living a life where no one really knows who you are because you're always performing. You're always 'doing' this world, which makes it really hard to be loving this world.

Then God comes along and tells you who you really are, tells you how you're really supposed to live. And it's tough. It comes so naturally, so easily, and yet, we turn it into one more thing to learn. Like we have to learn how to be gracious. Like we have to learn how to be kind. Like we have to learn how to be loving. 

It's a lie.

What you have to learn is not how to be gracious; you're already gracious. God's grace courses through your veins. But you must unlearn how to be judging. You don't have to learn kindness; you're already kind. You unlearn hatred. You don't have to learn to be loving. At your very core, you are already loving. God made you this way. What you have to unlearn is everything that stands in the way of that love.

Becoming who God created you to be is not a new set of stuff to learn; it's a whole heap of stuff to unlearn. 

So what do you need to unlearn today?