“Half of faith is learning what we don’t know. The other half is unlearning what we do know.”

A thought by Mark Batterson (2014-09-02) from his book, The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible (p. 131). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

The first part means that we should spend a lot of time in the Bible trying to see how God thinks, how He reacts, and what He wants. That goes a long way in building our faith. It also means to think, to stop and remember what He has done in our lives in times past, and to read of other’s experiences. That also strengthens our faith but we also need to do some unlearning.

Mark says, "The second half is far more difficult than the first half. That’s why Jesus repeatedly said, 'You have heard that it was said . . . but I tell you.' He was uninstalling Old Testament assumptions with New Testament revelations. Going the extra mile or turning the other cheek was more than behavior modification. Jesus was reverse engineering the old rules and installing new ones."

Back earlier in the book Mark made some statements that challenged me. He said, "According to the research of Rolf Smith, children ask 125 probing questions per day. Adults, on the other hand, ask only six probing questions per day. That means that somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we lose 119 questions per day! [Rolf Smith, The Seven Levels of Change: The Guide to Innovation in the World’s Largest Corporations (Arlington, TX: Summit, 1997), 49.] At some point, most of us stop asking questions and start making assumptions. That is the day our imagination dies. It’s also the day miracles stop happening. If you want to experience the miraculous, you need to quit making assumptions.”

Yes we need to learn but we also need to ask questions. One of the problems in the church world is we settle on some answers which we need to settle on but we quit asking questions on some old answers that aren’t meeting the needs of this day. And the same is true in us as individuals. Even at 67 I still need to be asking questions.

Yes there are some absolute truths that we don't question but there are some areas that we do need to question in order to do what God has called us to do. There is a world out there who needs us and there are miracles that God wants to do through us and people He wants us to reach.

So what old rules do you need to reverse engineer and what new ones do you need to install?

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