It is not my responsibility to change others.
This is a huge lesson I have been trying to learn for a few years.
Ever since I started studying the Bible in context to history, Judaism, and geography....I believed that because I had learned what I learned, and because it was SO life changing for me, that I needed to go and teach everyone what I had learned.
While based on Deuteronomy 6 and other such verses, we are commanded to teach others the truth of God and are accountable for living and acting on this truth....
I have learned that it is not my responsibility for others to accept what I have to teach.
I first learned this while going to the AA hall I was at for awhile: You can't change others, you can only change yourself.
The past year or so, I have really just been shredding myself apart because I felt like I have not been able to share the things I have learned.
I am so over thinking like that.
Last year at Northwestern, I was upset all year because I never met one person interested in what I had learned and was desperate to share....
My attitude has finally come around to accept that I can't change others or force them to care.
Not even with the things that changed myself.
Since I typed my blog "I went to the Wall to Meet God" where I shared some of the things I have been learning and experiencing and struggling with here in Israel....I've had some interesting things going with myself spiritually.
I said in that blog that I felt like I figured out what it is God is calling me towards: a communal type community living with others living with God.
However, I have had some clarifications on what this might not entail:
I do not want to teach the Bible as a career.
I don't want to be a professor.
I don't want to be a pastor.
I don't want to "be" a "teacher" in academics.
I don't want to be a pastor living with a bunch of people in a commune, taking the responsibility to "lead" them. That idea is so contradictory to what I believe. I don't want to take the place of God in peoples eyes. I don't want people to come to me for help. I want to help others but not feel like it is some responsibility of mine to do so. I want to help others draw closer to God because they want to draw closer to God...not because they need ME to do so. I don't want to be the Shepherd. I want to helps others see that HE is their shepherd.
No joke, as soon as I posted that blog, I had this HUGE desire to play music and drums that I never experienced or felt like before. It freaked me out.... because I was like 'Hey God...what the heck...I JUST felt sure on what I am doing..?" So, I may still do a commune...but not at all in the way that probably comes to your mind when you read that.
I really started to think about what I am doing.
I am going to college for 3 years to get a degree in a topic that I do not want to make into a career anywhere near the sense that everyone else who majors in what I am majoring in is.
It is automatically assumed that if you are a Biblical Studies Major, that you are going to Seminary...hands down.
But I have come to realize...ya know. I am not studying this stuff for other people.
I am studying this stuff because I LIKE it.
The fact is, I am terrible at school. just terrible at it. I don't deserve to or have any right to try and go down the path of my professors and become some great Bible scholar...I am a terrible student. I can't do this stuff the way the world has laid out.
So I am putting myself into some major debt to study a topic... (I actually think I concluded this midway through last year on, I just did not want to admit it)...that I don't want to do as a career.
In fact, the opposite. I want to teach people...but I don't want to rely on other peoples ability to accept what I teach to make a difference in how I survive in life or support myself.
If that is the case, I might as well quit now because I have learned that most people...or at least not enough people desire to learn about the Bible to make a career out of me teaching them. People don't care enough about the things I study for me to make a career out of.
So I have concluded this:
I am going to teach, however, it will be through books or other such mediums where I do it and people have the option to read it or not....in other words, the responsibility is on THEM to learn, not me to teach.
I don't care if I type up 30 page blogs on Microsoft word and people don't read it. I find it funny how many people tell me how long my blogs are and they either have not finished it or won't read it. I don't have a problem with it. Don't read my blogs out of obligation...read out of desire to want to learn. But I am not typing these for you...I type them for myself because they help me think.
I have really learned and started to live the idea that I am not going to run to every person and say "Listen!" Rather, I am not opening my mouth on things unless someone asks.
So I now am in a dilemma though....for what am I going to do to support my life and the future people who may rely on me for support in life?
Who knows!
The only group of people I actually truly care to teach...in the sense of a responsibility to help lead in life...and would do it for a living are the youth I have already taught...and based on how that has gone, I could be a youth pastor or something and love it.
But who cares! God will work it all out. I've been thinking about all this because I had a crazy dream last night that I could not get a job after graduation and couldn't pay my loans off and was sent to prison. Awesome.
I don't want that fear to be the very thing that causes me not to do what God may want me to do.
I like music. The only true natural gift I have in this world is drumming...I am going to enhance that and work at that.
Maybe do music full time? I don't know. It was interesting, because this past Sunday I walked half hour into the New City of Jerusalem to a music store in some mall (I really had no idea where I was). But I was going crazy for a pair of drum sticks. So I bought some and a practice pad...just for something to hit. I'm standing in line and this guy next to me is all like 'you play drums?" I'm like. Yeah.
Turned out he is the worship director for a local congregation...they meet right across the hall from the music store. He has been looking for a drummer. So I went to band practice and watched. I might start playing drums for them sometime soon.
But it was so shocking....because I was expecting God to put me in the places that would be a sign as to what I should be doing in my life. I still can't wrap my mind around how many things could of happened that would have made it so I would not of met him.
A few weeks ago I posted in our school paper that I was willing to teach a Bible study on the festivals....no one has responded. Its been like 3 or 4 weeks.
And God finds me a place to possibly play drums? Interesting.
So maybe in the future I will be doing more with music than I have been thinking.But I seriously would consider doing youth pastor stuff for awhile too. Who knows ya know?
However, as far as what to do with my desire to teach....I am glad I have finally come to the conclusion that I can teach everyday...through blogs right now, and in the future find another medium. I can offer to do things, but I do not have to rely on others to want to be taught in order to teach.
You don't want to learn what I have to say, don't read my blog! So simple, so refreshing.
I will teach in the future in a way where my life is not effected by others paying attention or not. Instead, I will just rely on God and work with the things He has already blessed me with.
I am a drummer. I am a teacher.
I am not a academic person. I would go mad trying to teach what I would like to teach going through the mediums of the Churches standards today....it probably would not even be allowed. How could I ever be an ordained minister when I don't agree with half the doctrine of most Churches today? I couldn't.
So oh well.
I'm just going to live my life....and attempt to follow God with all of my Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength.
because I can't change others.
Sweet.
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