Unlearn Me

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 18:3

I am less than two months away from my fortieth birthday. I have earned multiple undergraduate degrees and am working on my first master's degree.  My IQ is well above average; my vocabulary, stellar.  I get bored easily and am always looking for new and greater answers to all the new and greater questions I have.  If I could do my life over again, I would want to pursue neuroscience, because I think the human brain is, quite possibly, the most fascinating thing in the universe.  Then again, astrophysics is pretty swell; have you heard about the Higgs boson particle?  They call it the "God particle"....   Takes some significant smarts to think about all that.

Problem is, I'm too smart.  Too smart for God.  My head is so full of stuff, that when God tries to teach me anything, instead of receiving and pondering and learning from Him, I have an immediate answer, a comeback, a one-up.  That's probably why I'm always full of questions; I've already got the answer, so why would God need to grace me with another?

When I was a kid, we used to sing a funny song in Sunday School, went something like this: "Oh you can't get to Heaven in roller skates; Oh you can't get to Heaven in roller skates, you'd roll right past those pearly gates."  I've been thinking of a new verse: "Oh you can't get to Heaven with too many smarts; oh you can't get to Heaven with too many smarts, 'cuz being smart don't change your heart."  Jesus told us that the only way to enter the Kingdom of heaven is to change and become like children.  Children know nothing, but they're hungry to learn.  It's only when we become adults that we think we know it all.  I would have to say that God's biggest challenge is unlearning us so that we can truly learn of Him.

I don't know what it will take for God to unlearn me.  But I'm willing - let the unlearning begin.