Do you look for confirmation or the things that disturb you? I read the following on Seth Godin's blog this morning:
"Some people read business books looking for confirmation. I read them in search of disquiet. Confirmation is cheap, easy and ineffective. Restlessness and the scientific method, on the other hand, create a culture of testing and inquiry that can't help but push you forward."
That got me thinking. (It usually doesn't take much to do that.) Do I look for things to read that challenge my view and push me forward or do I look for things that confirm what I already believe? Do I seek out people who view life from a different perspective or ones who see it the same as I do? Am I seeking confirmation or wrestling with the subjects that create disquiet in my heart?
It is easier to seek the confirmation. It is quicker to surround myself with those who agree with me. (Not sure if that is even possible with the way I see things.) But is it better? I want to be challenged even when it is more difficult. I want to be pushed forward rather than settling. For me, I seek out those who challenge me to change. I want to learn more rather than spend all of my time defending the way things are. I want to be asking - How can I change the way I do things? What doesn't work? What can we do better? The status quo rarely moves you forward. What are you searching that creates disquiet for you? Who challenges you to see a better way of doing things?
What are you going to choose - confirmation or disquiet?
1 comment:
I search for disquiet in the truth, more specifically theology and biblical interpretation. I tend to read and listen to a lot of different views on theological issues. It has really helped me to round out my understanding of scripture and the church as a whole. And when it comes to denominationalism it has helped me to demystify a lot of "what those guys believe".
A lot of different groups of people have good sound reasonable and biblical evidence for what they believe. And I've found that a lot of the time when we begin to construct our system of belief, sometimes in reaction to something extreme that someone else believes, that we usually start getting it all screwed up, just in some other way.
Listening to different views has helped me to understand that there are some real mysteries to our faith. I mean, there is know able truth, but that trying to tie it down, or lock it into a system, or control it in some way, tends to reduce it to just another human ideology.
For instance are we saved by faith? or by works? Paul seems to argue one, and James seems to argue the other. Some tie themselves to one, others tie themselves to the other, but somewhere there is a third option. And all miss the statements of Jesus (and Paul, and James, and John, and Peter) that Love is the only true evidence of salvation. And so, I think landing on Faith? vs Works? is a false dichotomy. Our faith is organic and living, and so it seems more that we are saved by Grace, through faith, that will always be working and moving and growing through acts of Love. And where there is faith only, there is death. But where there is work only there is death. But where there is living faith, there will be works of love all around. And the two will always be replenishing themselves.
Thats one example of many theological dichotomies. But to circle back around, reading different views have helped me to see it all for the living thing that it is. I think its when we lock ourselves into someone's system that we begin to lose the life and the power of it all.
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