A PERPETUAL ENTERPRISE
Growing in Faith
FAITH is the discovery of God who is a limitless reality. In space and time, He is never-ending, discovering Him is likewise an enduring, ongoing event. The discovery of God is the bedrock of true religion. A well-known scientist once reflected that if a day came and went without his having discovered anything new in nature, he considered that day as wasted, for, as he said, “Observing nature is my religion.” If this is the feeling of one who is absorbed in God’s creation, how can one who is absorbed in the Creator Himself feel any different?
Just as the scientist discovers something new in the world of creation every day, so a believer should always be making fresh discoveries about his Creator—discoveries which would strengthen him in his faith.
If one’s thoughts are constantly centred on God, one will repeatedly come upon new and greater aspects of His glory. Different facets of His attributes will appear time and time again, bathed in eternal, divine light. Just as God’s attributes are infinite, so is the believer’s search for knowledge of God unending.
If one’s thoughts are constantly centred on God, one will repeatedly come upon new and greater aspects of His glory. Just as God’s attributes are infinite, so is the believer’s search for knowledge of God unending.
This quest for knowledge comes to fruition in many forms. Sometimes it takes the form of divine states never before experienced. Sometimes it expresses itself in words of praise for the Almighty never before conceived of.
Sometimes some aspect of God’s wisdom— hitherto unrevealed—becomes as clear as crystal. Sometimes one simply feels unusually close to God. And sometimes one suddenly feels capable of plumbing to the depths of profound and awesome truths.
If the discovery of God is a never-ending event, the converse is also true. Faith that does not grow is no faith at all. It is an expression rather of religious neglect—neglect of Almighty God, our Creator and Sustainer.