I used to believe that spiritual maturity meant having all the answers—that somewhere along my faith journey, the questions would stop coming and certainty would settle like morning mist over still water. But sitting with my worn Bible on a quiet morning, I found myself asking the very question that would reshape my understanding of discipleship: Why do I need "deeper" understanding?
The question arrived uninvited, cutting through years of accumulated religious knowledge like sunlight through fog. For so long, I had approached Scripture as a puzzle to solve, a mystery requiring increasingly sophisticated keys to unlock its secrets. I collected commentaries, attended seminary, and filled notebooks with theological insights, convinced that complexity was the pathway to truth. Yet despite this growing library of understanding, something felt hollow—a disconnect between what I knew in my head and what was happening in my heart.
That morning a profound simplicity began to emerge from my questioning. God's word is simple to understand. This wasn't the voice of anti-intellectualism speaking, but rather the whisper of authentic truth cutting through the noise of overthinking. The parables Jesus told were understood by fishermen and tax collectors, not just scholars. The greatest commandments—to love God and love others—require no advanced degrees to comprehend. The issue isn't knowledge; it's behavior.
This realization struck me like a gentle but firm correction from a loving teacher. I had been treating my faith like an academic exercise when it was meant to be a lived experience. Behavior is the root action, the place where faith transforms from concept to reality. It's one thing to know that forgiveness is important; it's entirely another to forgive the colleague who took credit for your work. It's simple to understand that we should love our enemies; it's revolutionary to actually do it.
As I continued to sit with this truth, I began to see how action is at the heart of discipleship. Jesus didn't call his followers to understand him—he called them to follow him. The invitation was active, not passive. It required movement, risk, and trust. This understanding began to shift something deep within me, a recognition that our heart change is how we are transformed, not through accumulating more information but through allowing truth to work its way from our minds into our daily choices.
This process, I realized, is what continual transformation looks like—not a single moment of enlightenment but a gradual reshaping that happens through countless small obediences and daily surrenders. Maturing is a lifelong discipleship journey, one that embraces questions rather than fears them. I had been trying to graduate from questioning when questioning itself was the curriculum.
Our journey is filled with questions for our teacher, and this isn't a sign of weak faith but of active engagement. A student who stops asking questions has stopped learning. When I approach Scripture now, I come not with the pressure to understand everything but with the freedom to wonder, to wrestle, to ask "What does this mean for how I live today?"
These questions that arise are answered through the Holy Spirit—not always with immediate clarity or theological precision, but with gentle nudges toward truth and love. Sometimes the answer is a conviction to call an estranged friend. Sometimes it's the courage to speak up for justice. Sometimes it's simply the peace to be still and know that God is God.
I've learned that the Holy Spirit's prompting should be obeyed, even when—especially when—it leads me away from comfortable certainties toward the messy, beautiful work of loving others. This obedience is itself a form of questioning, a living inquiry into what it means to be human and holy.
Questions, I now understand, are essential for active discipleship. They keep us humble, curious, and dependent on grace. They prevent us from mistaking information for transformation and knowledge for wisdom. They remind us that faith is not a destination but a daily choice to trust, to follow, to love.
Discovering Bible truths as I read His word does not necessarily lead to firm answers but leaves me with anticipation—ready to live the questions, to let behavior shape belief, and to find God not in the complexity of understanding but in the beautiful simplicity of surrender.