The Good & Bad Of Experience
Without experience, we will be captive to theory which has not been tested in real-life trials. Lack of experience is gullibility (Prov 7:7, CSB-alt). Life throws storms our way that we can only learn to manage by going through them. Reason, while helpful, needs experience. As George Washington noted, “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Both theory and experience are important. After all, we must know the Lord in an experiential, not a merely theoretical way (Jn 16:3, Wuest) and it is through experience that we learn to discern God’s will so we can offer the reasonable service we owe to God (Rom 12:1-2, NKJV with Weymouth).
On the other hand, it is easy for us to assume that we have “been there and done that” – so we know this battle will be like the last. “We are constantly misled by the ease with which our minds fall into the ruts of one or two experiences” (Sir William Osler). This is as foolish as thinking experience is of no importance. For example, when Hannibal fought the Romans at Cannae, the Romans thought the Gauls in Hannibal’s army would fight the same way that the Gauls did whom they had recently defeated. Having fought with Hannibal for a couple of years, they fought differently than the Gauls whom the Romans had experienced. This Roman assumption, based on experience, proved disastrous.
We should get experience, treasure it, and learn from it without making a principle out of it: “Never make a principle out of your experience; let God be as original with other people as he is with you” (Oswald Chambers). May the Lord enable us to learn from our past but not be captive to it.
Comforting others is costly but worth it.