When Teaching Keeps You From Learning

There’s a danger in blogging no one told me about.

It’s the same danger that plagues all teachers and leaders, those who are passionate about explaining truths and guiding others.

Spoiler: the threat has nothing to do with freakishly large crocodiles or mutant caterpillars bent on world domination.  Those menaces show no preference for bloggers or non-bloggers.

As a blogger, my deepest desire is to share my story in a way that offers hope in the pain, truth in the chaos, and community in the vulnerability.  I’ve learned to mine the regular experiences of my life for bits of wisdom and object lessons to share with others.

When I watch my kids, I see a connection with God’s love for us as children.  As I talk to a stranger in the grocery store, I get a fresh perspective on a Bible story I’ve heard 100 times.  When I’m struggling with __________ (diabetes, anger, pride, doubt, etc.) I wonder how I can present it in a way that is honest but not cynical.

But I’ve noticed that sometimes in my propensity to search out teaching opportunities in life, I’m not always allowing myself to absorb those lessons myself.  It’s easier to slap together a creative metaphor with a cute moral than it is to be personally trained by that metaphor.  And morals are much less cute when one has to apply them to one’s own life. Blech.

Most of us, blogger or not, have experienced the dilemma of “experiencing” verses “documenting”.  When my kids are putting on a ridiculous vampire play complete with fake blood, I can be in the moment experiencing them, or I can be focused on documenting the moment for later. (You can assume from the picture which mode I was in.)Experience requires me to be present, not worried about whether the moment will be recorded or seen later by others.  Documenting isn’t bad, but its goal (saving something for later or for others) inherently prevents me from being completely immersed in the moment.

We can’t do both at the same time…at least not well.

Likewise, when we blog, teach, or train others, our focus on crafting or packaging a life-changing lesson for others can eclipse our ability to fully experience that truth or lesson for ourselves.

At least for me.

-Recently I wrote a piece where I offered suggestions for other people to try before I’d actually tried those exercises myself. (I didn’t expect that to be quite so embarrassing to write.)

-Sometimes I’m so focused on writing out a blog or message for church to lead others that I’m forgetting to sit and let God lead me first.

-At times I’m more interested in the creative presentations of the truth I’m sharing than in allowing God to use that truth to birth something deep in my own soul.

-Even as a parent, there are times I’m trying to teach my kids an important Biblical principle and I’m not necessarily absorbing that principle well in my own life.

My point is not that we should stop writing or stop teaching.  Sometimes we need to share our hearts while we’re still in process, when we haven’t quite gotten to the moral of the story, because that is profoundly human.  People need to know we don’t know it all and are wrestling through the answers too.  Other times we might need to get a thought on paper before it really sinks in for ourselves.  I’m definitely someone who processes things best by talking or writing them out.  That’s OK.

But my challenge for myself is to notice when my focus on teaching is actually preventing me from learning.  I don’t want to spend so much time documenting truths that I’m not able to be in a moment and feel the weight of a truth in my own hands. If I’m writing truth more than applying truth…something is terribly wrong.

This is why rest is so important; it gives us the chance to step back from the soul shepherding of others and sit in the condition of our own souls.  It gives us a place to breathe and let God speak His truth into our hearts and experience him, without any pressure to record or document that moment for anyone but ourselves.  (And I promise I’ll rest too as soon as I finish this blog post…ah see…there I go again.)

I can’t teach others genuinely if I’m not experiencing and processing God’s heart and wisdom for myself.

So to those that teach and parent and lead and blog…now you’ve seen the danger sign.  The sign isn’t meant to scare us, but return us to the rhythmic rest and full life that God designed for us.  (And to be honest…I have a feeling I’ll be trying to embrace this lesson my whole life.)

How about you?  Have you struggled with always trying to find an answer for others but not always making space to let your own heart be lead?  How have you learned to absorb and experience truths personally, even as you are hoping to lead others?