Honestly Do You Want to Grow in Faith?

June 2, 2025

Do you think of yourself as a person that wants to grow in faith? This is not a rhetorical question. I actually meet very few people that really want to grow in faith, especially if they are going to have to work at it. It is a hard thing to grow in faith. When I write a sermon, the process almost always stretches me to grow deeper in some way. There are many times I think, both consciously and subconsciously, “I have grown enough in my faith this week. Now Lord, please make the rest of the week easier.’ Sometimes the Lord agrees. Sometimes He does not.

God put a young man, I will call Jeff, in my path once. He had just quit college because of stress related insomnia. I found out he had grown up in the church, but was not active. His prayer life was non-existent.

He knew God had a plan for his life, but hesitantly answered that prayer was the key to finding that answer. Then I asked him if he would like me to teach him how to pray? He didn’t really think about it, and quickly responded, “If you would like.”

I was quick to respond to him, “Oh No! I am much too busy for that. But if you would like to learn to pray I will set aside everything I am doing to teach you. I can probably tell you some of what God’s will is for your life if you will let me teach you to pray.” He listened to me tell some about how I would teach him, and why God might want him to know. I knew him well enough to know he was bright, talented, and a wonderful candidate to do great things for God (Of course, we are all good candidates to do great things for God). I closed by saying, “If you ever want me to teach you to pray, all you have to do is ask.”

He was in my life for about two years after that. He struggled with insomnia the whole time. He never asked me to teach him to pray. Would you?

Please understand. I wouldn’t fault you if you want to have God on your own terms. I have done that many times in my life, and there were times it worked out quite well. For example, When I was eighteen, my church choir director put me in an octet (eight people) to sing an anthem. When he called the name of one of the altos, and she stood up, I was smitten with her beauty. I got up the courage to ask her out, she was at a dry point in her dating life, and so she said, “Yes” (I was not a very good catch by high school boy standards). For me, if it wasn’’ love at first sight, it probably was at second sight.

A few years after that beautiful woman married me we were at a religious retreat where we talked about praying to God to find our spouse. I asked Martha if she had prayed about us getting married. She looked at me completely surprised, and said, “Of course I did. Didn’t you?”

I honestly told her I did not, and honestly told her I had a reason, saying, “I was so in love with you, the last thing I wanted to hear in the quiet of prayer was that you were not the wife God had planned for me.” Now, I use this as an example of when things turned out well when I didn’t turn to God, but my future wife did turn to God, and I can guarantee you if God had told her I was not Mr. Right, she would have dropped me like a selfie stick at a funeral.

I did learn that it is not wise to do anything without God. Proverbs 9:10a says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” I have learned to be afraid to do anything in life without God, which is what this verse is challenging us to realize. We are often afraid of what people think, or God telling us what we don’t want to hear, or many other things. This is not the beginning of wisdom.

I close with the opening question, “Do you think of yourself as a person that wants to grow in faith? If there is an area of faith you want to grow in, God will put a mentor in your path. I hope you will not be like Jeff, and say no to that mentor. Choose to grow in faith, and let God be glorified through your life. (To learn more about Al Earley or read previous articles, see www.lagrangepres.org. You can purchase my book, My Faith Journal, at Amazon.com, a compilation of 366 articles as a daily devotional).