“The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is not the one who teaches you something you didn’t know before, but the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly.” — Oswald Chambers
I have always found the above to be true.
Moments of epiphany, breakthrough, enlightenment, penetrating insight, profound understanding, and deep joy come when a puzzle piece that’s been wandering around inside me finds a place to fit. The piece always seems to be there already.
Which makes me wonder, how much knowledge is contained within us waiting to be unlocked and properly placed? All of it?
I don’t mean factual information. New facts can certainly be learned that weren’t lurking ill-defined inside me already. Trivia is fun and sometimes useful, but it is not Truth.
Truth about ourselves, our fellow man, and reality always seems to be revealed through a process of finding, refining, and fitting pieces already in us into a better position. I cannot think of a time when this wasn’t true.
In the end, there is no other way for an individual to form a belief than by what feels true. You may take issue with that, but I don’t mean it as a rejection of logic or objective truth. Beliefs can be laid out logically, but a person could choose to deny that logic is a valid measurement. Objective measurements can be made, but a person can choose to deny that objectivity exists. There is no getting around the fact that all beliefs are ultimately internally decided. They are decided on feeling or gut or instinct or something else inside us.
Humans seem to have inside them some thing against which everything is measured. When you’re miserable or confused, you’re living out of alignment with this thing. When you’re harmonious, or when you have those wonderful a-ha moments, you’re in line with it.
We seem to contain far more insight and understanding than we possibly realize, but it takes tremendous work to find it, tease it out, and fit it into its proper place.
“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.” — Psalm 51:6