There is nothing harder to open, then a closed mind

This phrase was spoken last night, in the context of a recovery group in which I am a leader. The context was within steps one and four of a traditional twelve-step program. Step one has to do with coming out of denial. Step four is about being willing to share our faults with one safe person. Step four is a biggie, and it is the step which many either skip, or quit the program. But, as the Scripture affirms, this is the step that brings healing (James 5:16).

The phrase however, is applicable much more widely than the context of recovery. Having spent my entire career in academia, it never ceases to amaze me how closed minded are those involved in research. It amazes me, because surely research is trying to get out the truth, but they don’t even believe truth exists! I see it over and over, doctors who dismiss chiropractors as quacks, and chiropractors who dismiss doctors because of the overuse of drugs. I have seen it in philosophers who dismiss out of hand any school that is not theirs. I have seen it in scientists who reject from the beginning the possibility of the divine, and who then turn round and say with the utmost confidence, that science disproves God. They are blind to their circular reasoning. Unfortunately, I have also seen it in church, where my group or denomination is thought to hold the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Many of us when we were young (me too), thought we had arrived, or at least thought we were pretty close to having arrived. We should have solved the problems of the world while we still knew everything! But realistically, even in our own chosen specialty, most of us experience the Eureka moment when we realized that the more we knew, the more we realized there is to know. And yet we still have the tendency to think that our chosen field is the most important, even if it’s wrapping cigars in Cuba!

The Scripture exposes two equal and opposite errors. The first, is ever learning but never arriving at the knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7). The second is feeling that we have arrived, “And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8: 2).

Father, please keep me from both of these errors. After forty-five years I know that even in my narrow specialty within a narrow specialty, I know very little compared with what is known, what can be known know, and what will be known in the future. In fact Your Word tells me that in these latter days, knowledge will increase (Daniel 12:4). Please give me a listening heart to listen, especially to those with whom I disagree. But also do not let me lapse into doubt about the truths You have firmly established in my life. Truly You are the way the truth and the life, I would not have survived without You. In Jesus Name Amen