It's hard to teach someone who's unteachable. It's difficult for someone to change when they don't want to change. It's almost impossible for someone to see their faults & shortcomings when they think everything they do is already good enough.

That's why we share parables, stories that lay alongside our major issues like innocent fuzzy little things - and then they smack us in the butt with their simple truths. Nathan did this with David in 2 Samuel 12, and Jesus did this all over the place. He taught in parables so that people ready to see something deeper and more spiritual would be able to make the connections, and mercifully the others wouldn't be held accountable in the hard-headedness if they didn't "get it."

How unteachable am I? When I find myself finishing the teacher's sentences or thoughts with my own ideas or opinions, I'm finding that it means that I'm closing myself off from learning anything new, that I'm hampering the process with an "I already know this" mentality. It kills me when I'm teaching and I get this kind of feeling from the crowd, but I get caught up in the exact same thing. My next questions then are: how much do I do this without realizing it? And how many times have I lost out on something transformational because "I already know this"?
- posted by Rick @ 16:21