Don’t Settle For What You Already Know About God

The first time I got on an airplane,  I was in awe looking out the window at the clouds below me. Now I close the window so there’s no glare on my laptop screen. The wonder has faded.

The same drift can happen in our faith. When a person has walked with God for a while, there can be a tendency to grow stale.

New Christians are excited; every truth they discover is fresh. It’s like exploring a sprawling mansion, opening one door after another to discover new gifts in each room. But as time goes on, we can settle in and grow dry. We’ve heard the sermons, studied the books, joined the team, and learned the answers. What once moved us now feels mundane. The truth we know no longer stirs us. There’s a disconnect between our heads and our hearts.

It doesn’t have to be this way. What first captured your heart about God was only the beginning. There’s always more about him to know, trust, and enjoy.

God Is Infinite

That’s why the Bible gives us prayers that ask God to open our eyes (Ps. 119:18; Eph. 1:18). The problem isn’t that we’ve never seen truth about God before; it’s that there’s always more to behold. Whether you’ve only been a Christian for a minute or the sand in your hourglass is running thin, you’ve never exhausted what can be known, trusted, and enjoyed of our endless God.

What first captured your heart about God was only the beginning. There’s always more about him to know, trust, and enjoy.

God is infinite, and each of his attributes is infinite in nature. He’s not just loving but abounding in faithful love (Ex. 34:6). Not only gracious but rich in grace (Eph. 1:7). His power? Immeasurably great (v. 19). His wisdom? Unsearchable (Isa. 40:28). He’s not just holy, but as we joyfully sing, he’s holy, holy, holy (6:3).

God isn’t a generous pour that fills the cup to the brim; he’s an endless waterfall, overflowing and never dry. There’s more than enough of him for us to enjoy for eternity. More than enough for the struggles you face. More than enough to bring peace to your stress, joy to your apathy, and grace to your guilt. More than enough for the new seasons of life you haven’t figured out yet, for the changes you couldn’t foresee.

He says to you: Come and see. I want to show you who I am.

Always More to Know and Enjoy

Take a simple truth every Christian child knows: “Jesus loves me.” It’s easy to say you know this and move on. But even that single sentence holds infinite possibility. This is why Paul can pray that the believers “may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:18–19).

You may think, I already know Jesus loves me. But Paul says that whatever we know of Christ’s love, we’ve only scratched the surface. We may know it, but we know it like a 5-year-old knows math. We can count to 10 but have no idea what calculus means. We may have measured out the dimensions of Jesus’s love with a schoolboy’s ruler, but his love expands beyond the reaches of the farthest galaxies. It surpasses knowledge.

What if you think you’ve trekked to the mountain’s peak, but you’ve just begun? What if you know of God’s love, power, grace, comfort, and wisdom could come alive to you in new ways? You’ve received, but there’s always more. You can be “filled with the fullness of God” (3:19).

How to Know God More Deeply

If there’s more to know of God, how do we move further up and in? How do we move beyond faith that’s grown stale?

1. Pray.

Paul doesn’t just teach these truths. He prays for them. So don’t settle for where you are. If you want to see, you must ask God to open your eyes.

Sometimes I’m up early, before the sun comes out. I can see my backyard—the grass, trees, and garden. But when the sun rises, I see it all in a new way. It’s been illuminated by the light, and I see depth, dimension, and color I couldn’t before. Earnestly ask God to do the same as you read and study his Word. We can’t see without his help.

2. Meditate on God’s Word.

Psalm 1 tells us that the blessed man “meditates day and night” on God’s law. To meditate is to slowly think about something. Like cooking barbecue, you’ll get more flavor in your spiritual life by going “low and slow” than you will by trying to rush and microwave your faith. Consider reading smaller portions of the Bible. Chew each word like you would a piece of brisket. Savor, think about, and pray through each reality God shows you.

3. Read the Bible with the church.

In Ephesians, Paul prays that the believers would “have strength to comprehend [God’s love] with all the saints.” We do this together with the church. C. S. Lewis said one of the benefits of Christian friendship is that we see more of God together. He wrote, “Every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest.”

I enjoy asking questions like these of friends from church: What Scripture passage has God used in your life recently? What’s one thing God has shown you about himself? Asking such questions and hearing friends answer feeds our souls with fresh insight and appreciation. As Lewis says, “The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have.”

4. Read solid theology books.

Paul doesn’t just hope the church will mysteriously come to know God’s love more deeply. He prays they’ll have “strength to comprehend.” He wants them to push further into the depths of God’s love by engaging their minds. Paul wants the Ephesians to take action, to study, and to stretch the limits of their comprehension.

God isn’t a generous pour that fills the cup to the brim; he’s an endless waterfall, overflowing and never dry. There’s more than enough of him for us to enjoy for eternity.

One way to do this is by reading theological books that will help you deepen your understanding of God. Pick up J. I. Packer’s Knowing God or a book from Crossway’s Short Studies in Systematic Theology series. Last year, I read John Piper’s tome Providence. It took what I already knew about the doctrine and added layer upon layer of context and color. A year later, I’m still drawing on its strength.

Think of a married couple that begins as star-crossed lovers but loses passion over time until the two are simply roommates or childcare partners. In a similar way, our faith can lose the passion it once had. But we don’t have to stay in that dry place.

God invites you to come, see, and be filled with passion again. He wants you to know and enjoy all he’s done and all he is. He wants you to know that he’s more. Infinitely more.