The Unlearning

The act of learning is as much about removing old information as it is about acquiring new information. Training can be as much about abandoning old habits as developing new ones. Unlearning is the slow and steady process of removing the unnecessary and replacing it with something new.

Habits are rarely formed overnight. Instead, they result from many years of training, from doing something repeatedly until it sticks and becomes routine. Many ex-smokers will tell you that their addiction to smoking wasn’t just the feeling they got from the nicotine but also the habit and routine. When they finally decided to quit, it wasn’t just the nicotine that gave them withdrawals; they also had to contend with the missing habit and routine they’d developed over the years. My grandmother smoked for twenty years or more and one day decided to quit “cold turkey.” Though she was successful in never picking up a cigarette and smoking again, the habit was harder for her to lose. In place of that habit, she started eating hard candies. She admitted that those hard candies helped her quit and that she had replaced one habit with another. Until the day she finally passed, she routinely carried and ate those candies.

In our working lives, we develop habits and working routines for whatever industry we’re in. The longer we work in a specific industry or for a particular business, the deeper those habits run. Switching industries or moving to a new place of employment often highlights just how entrenched we’ve become in our habits. The longer we’ve worked somewhere, the harder it is to adapt to something new. It’s especially difficult when we move to an entirely new industry. The way people talk, language use, appropriate mannerisms, culture, and general conduct suddenly change. We find ourselves feeling like a fish out of water even though we may have been working our whole lives. It can be intimidating and frustrating. To adapt, we have to unlearn our old habits and then develop new ones.

The walk of faith requires unlearning, too. In a single moment, we transform from hopeless sinners to hopeful believers, but the years spent in our industry of sin leave us with a mountain of habits and routines that need to be forgotten. Jesus saves us and promises not to remember our past and hold it against us, but the same can’t be said for ourselves. We remember, and we struggle to let go. Unlearning is intimidating and frustrating, and it’s easy to feel hopeless and lost. As hard as we may try, we just can’t shake the bad habits. We long for a simple solution. We may pray day and night and read our Bibles daily, but somehow, we just can’t keep from messing up. Like a toddler learning to walk, we just can’t seem to get the balance right to remain steady. We trip and fall on our faces, and sometimes, that fall really hurts.

If only there were a simple and easy answer, but unlearning and changing habits is tough. Unlearning takes lifetimes, not days. Our Bibles teach us that a life firmly rooted in Christ should yield the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control, and so these are what we should be working hard to cultivate in our lives. Yet, our pitiful little trees will produce some very sour and un-ripened fruit. Prayer and Bible study are the water and fertilizer we need, but somehow, the fruit won’t sprout, and we’ll be tempted to lose heart and give up. But take heart, we’re not saved because of how good we can be. We’re not rewarded for the things we do right. The medicine of salvation was given to us because we were sick, not because we were well.

Take comfort in knowing that you are already saved. Your sincere heart won’t sin you out of the hope and promise given to you. You are forgiven already. It’s not just once, but constantly and ongoing. We’re going to fail. We’re going to slip and stumble. We will fall back into bad habits, but like toddlers, the longer we walk, the steadier our balance becomes. Keep getting up. Keep walking. Replace old habits with new ones, and remember that habits take years to build. You are safe. Your sins are not counted against you because you are already saved. Wake up each day, step out of bed, and walk towards Heaven. No matter how many times you trip and fall, look up because Heaven is just ahead. You will get there.

For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing (Romans 7:18-19).

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!- Romans 7:24-25