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Jun. 25, 2008
Ed Psych and the Road to Damascus
Posted in Church God Faith
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In educational psychology, they talk about babies and children and "schemes." (Based on conclusions drawn by Piaget from observing children.) A scheme is a way of thinking about the world, based on what you have experienced. For example, babies know that when you bang something on the floor ( a toy or a bottle or whatever) you get a nice bam-bam sound. Hand them an egg. Whoa. That didn't fit my scheme. As the child gets older and experiences more, they use these schemes to interpret their experiences, or they modify their schemes based on their new experiences. (Assimilation and accommodation) The final element is equilibration. This occurs developmentally as the child discards outdated schemes or reevaluates their whole set of schemes in order to balance the assimilation and accommodation. The example is imagine moving to a new city and a friend gives you a hand-drawn map to the bank, the grocery store and the church. You may make notes on it and add roads to it as you learn new areas of the city. You may write and erase and redraw until, eventually, you just need a new map. The old one is no longer useful, and you need a clean slate. Paul is on the road to Damascus, where he is going to zealously persecute Christians on behalf of his God. The problem is, God shows up, and He isn't who Paul thought He would be. "Who art Thou, Lord?" The analogy isn't perfect, but there are corollaries. Most of the time we base what we believe about God on our past experiences. But sometimes, the egg breaks, and we have to change what we believe about God. The problem is that the world stands there waiting for the egg to break so they can say "Aha! See! I knew that would happen. Now what are you going to do? Now who are you going to believe?" This is definitely the point where many fall away. When the God they believe in does something unexpected (or even ungodlike in their opinion), they either have to reconcile their beliefs with the Truth or discard them. Many choose the latter. What does your God look like? Have there been times in your life when "the egg broke" and you had to get a new scheme? Maybe you are there now, holding a broken egg and wondering what in the world to do with it. My friend J. shared this: Jesus came to the disciples walking on the sea. They immediately responded with-- “It’s a ghost!” G. Campbell Morgan’s son, Frank, told a story of how he was studying for the ministry during the early days of W.W. II and he got a draft notice for the army. His immediate response was “It’s a ghost!” He just couldn’t believe God would do that to him. And then he had to come to the realization that whether this was the definite will of God or the permissive will of God, God was still in control. It wasn’t a ghost; it was God causing or allowing, and He had a purpose in it.The response of Jesus to us is the same as it was to to the disciples: "It is I." Or as Abraham Piper prefers, "It's me." Maybe it's not what you thought or hoped or expected, but "It's me." (Literally "I AM" as in Yahweh to Moses: I am that I am.) And even though it's not what we thought it would be, it's enough. He's enough. |
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