My current job is in an industry that is constantly changing. Software that was "cutting edge" 3-5 years ago is now obsolete. I always heard the saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks", but I have a variation of that. You CAN teach an old dog new tricks but sometimes it's a slower learning process. Sometimes you have to UN-learn things to accept new ways. That's where I find myself today. I will admit that sometimes it causes me great anxiety as I fear that I can't keep up with the younger minds I work with but all I can do is put forth my best effort and trust God to take care of me.
I have also learned this through my life as a believer. I grew up in a church that was very strict and harsh in their teaching. One teaching that we had was wearing rings. We were taught that wearing rings (or any jewelry) was a sign of pride and unacceptable for a "child of God" in our church denomination. In my early adult years, I dated and was engaged to a non-church person, and I proposed to her with an engagement ring. My parents flipped when they found out. You would have thought I had betrayed my whole upbringing. My thinking at the time was if my fiancé wasn't taught the same doctrine on rings that she wouldn't understand. Many claimed that I was compromising and doomed any future in that relationship. I eventually caved to the pressure and broke off the engagement.
Then in the 90's the church denomination began to change their views on wedding rings. Some still vehemently protested the move, and some even split off to form their own church denomination. My wife at the time wanted to wear wedding rings and I was hesitant. Personally, I never saw anything wrong with it but when I met with our pastor to tell him of our intentions wear our rings to church, he said that he was very disappointed in me. You can imagine how that made me feel. The pastor asked to delay wearing rings to church a week so that he could prepare for it. Wow, looking back now I see how silly all of this fuss was. I learned many years later that the pastor secretly met with other church members to discuss if we should be allowed to hold any positions in the church. I'm telling you if I had known this had happened then, I would have left that church a lot sooner.
We wore the rings to church, and it was as if every eyeball was drawn to our ring fingers. It was a challenge the first few weeks. We even had an anonymous caller who would leave messages on our answering machine criticizing us over this.
Do you know what happened? Eventually it was nothing. Others started wearing their rings and the people saw that we were no different than before we put on the rings. It was much ado about nothing. While the pastor and a few others made much of us wearing a wedding band, they were ignoring the real mission of the church.
Even today, I still find myself looking at things differently and looking at others in a more relaxed way. Now I will tell you that I don't understand the way people live sometimes and their lifestyles. Some things are just not for me, but I am careful to judge or throw stones at people for the way they live. I know people are so afraid about being TOO accepting of others and worry about "compromising" their beliefs. The key thing that I think we should remember is that we can't force anyone to live by our standards. Our job is to love people. It's the job of the Holy Spirit to convict people of their sins. I cringe when I see people with signs and yelling hateful things to people. That's just not going to get the job done.
I am constantly learning in this changing world. We all have to be willing to look past our judgments and unlearn things we have thought were how we should be in dealing with others.
The Bible says that we have ALL sinned and come short of the glory of God. None of us are above being judged. It is true that people don't want to believe the Bible anymore and the truths on how it helps us to serve God. It's sad how far our world has fallen but it also shouldn't be a surprise either.
I have come a long way since my childhood in a church denomination that taught a lot of things you wouldn't believe but I am thankful that I have been willing to learn new things and look at things with a better mindset.
