The Night of Unknowing

In the Bible, the new day doesn't begin at sunrise or at midnight, but rather, at sunset. God wants us to see that each new day begins with darkness. The new day does not begin by being able to see— The new day begins with being unable to see. Likewise, spiritual growth does not begin with knowing. Holding onto certitude and insisting you have all the answers prevents spiritual progress. The process of spiritual growth is knowing, unknowing, and then new knowing. There are some things you have to unlearn before you can make spiritual progress. We want to think that to make spiritual progress all we need is positive addition. But a lot of making spiritual progress is about negative subtraction. Unknowing is harder than not knowing. It's not the learning that is hard, it's the unlearning.