When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully.
I Corinthians 13: 11-12
Knowledge is power. When a person has no knowledge of a subject, they have no mastery of it, and it has no relevance for them. Many people have a “Sunday school” knowledge of the faith. They know a few trivia points, like which icons are on the icon screen, or the names of the books of the Bible, but this knowledge is really not enough to keep engaged in the faith.
When we were little kids learning our multiplication tables, it was a big accomplishment to know that 10 x 5 equals 50. But that knowledge by itself is actually useless, until you apply it. My love of math didn’t take off until I realized I could solve real life problems with it, such as if a hamburger costs five dollars and I have fifty dollars, then I can buy ten hamburgers. In order to get to the point where 10 x 5 actually meant something, I had to keep learning.
Knowing the order of icons or the names of the books of the Bible is important, don’t get me wrong, but if this is all we know about the faith, it is not enough to keep us engaged. We actually have to open the Bible and read it. We actually should take a catechism class or read a book on Orthodox theology and learn some of the basic tenets of our faith. The Prayer Team is my attempt to bring deeper knowledge of the faith to readers, and I thank you not just for investing in this ministry, but investing in yourselves, in your personal spiritual growth, with your time. I hope the knowledge you glean here will help the faith become more alive for you and become a more powerful force in your life.
You don’t actually have to have a lot of knowledge about the faith. The investment of time is more important than one’s intellectual depth on spiritual things. There is a well-known classic book of Russian Orthodox spirituality entitled “The Way of a Pilgrim.” It is basically about a man who only knows the Jesus Prayer. He doesn’t read, he doesn’t know the scriptures. But he knows this prayer, “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” to the degree that he “becomes” the prayer. It is in his every breath, almost unconsciously, his heart beats in rhythm to the prayer. On the other hand, there are theologians and priests who eventually become atheists and agnostics because their vast knowledge of the faith never penetrated their hearts. It’s not the knowledge we have, but the time we invest and the disposition of our hearts that allow Christ to take over, and our own egos to be kept in check. There has to be some knowledge of Christ in order to let Him reside in your heart. However, one can have exhaustive knowledge in his or her mind and still not have Christ in their heart.
Another critical thing about faith is that faith is personal. We can, and should, share knowledge of the faith with others. However, we cannot take the total of our personal faith and divide amongst others, the way that you can split up a pizza among friends. Faith is something personal that either we have or we don’t have. Most adults who have faith were first introduced to it by their parents. (There are, of course, an increasing number of people who come to the faith as adults, having had no grounding as a child). Somewhere in their journey, the faith became personal, which is why they are still faithful. There are, sadly, a great number of adults, whose faith has never became personal, their ”faith” is strictly the faith of their parents. So, when they leave their childhood home to go to college, they fall away from God and the church, because God and the church are the God and the church of their parents, not their own. This is why so many people fall away in their young adult years, and never return, except on certain occasions with their parents—i.e. holidays, getting married, baptizing their children, the things parents expect of their kids.
It is critical that parents expose their children to God and to the church enough so that a child experiences these things in a personal way. It is parents who decide to pray in their homes, or read the Bible to their children, or bring their children to church for worship. I will always be thankful to my parents for taking me to church, and reading stories from the Bible to me (though I actually never read the whole Bible until I was in college). I will always be thankful to my priest when I was in college, because he encouraged me to belong to the church. I made my first stewardship pledge my freshmen year of college. I asked the priest how much it cost to belong and he said, “whatever you feel like you want to give.” I think I pledged $50 back then (which was a lot for a broke college student in 1990) and I started to get mailings from the parish, was asked to attend meetings and vote for parish leadership, and really felt that this was “my church” not just “my parents’ church.” It is critical that people feel a personal connection with both God and the Church by the time they are eighteen. And it is critical that people have a personal connection with Christ, and this is based more on time and less on knowledge. The greatest treasure we have is our time, and when we invest time in the faith, this is when we will come to a greater knowledge of Christ, which leads to greater interest, which leads to greater comment, which in turn will make Christianity a greater source of strength in our lives.
Today’s verses from I Corinthians 13:11-12, remind us that children act in a certain way, but as we grow up, we outgrow the childish ways. In childhood, we have a more dim (not sad, but limited) view of things and the things we understand in part, we understand more fully as we get older. That works for behavior, maturity, intelligence and spirituality. No one should see things from the perspective of a child as they mature into adulthood. We shouldn’t be content with a Sunday school knowledge of God, but rather, we should work to understand more fully what we were introduced to as children (most of us) and this journey of understanding takes our entire life to complete.
Lord, thank You for the gift of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Thank You for the gift of the Church, a place where I can grow in my faith. Thank You for my mind that helps me absorb knowledge and my heart where I become convicted by the knowledge that I have. Help me to be a lifelong student of Your word. Help the faith I had as a child to mature in my adult years. Help me to experience faith and the Church in a personal way. And help me to inspire others, whether they are my children, or other children, or even those who are childish in their knowledge of the faith, to desire a deeper connection with You, even as I seek a deeper connection with You. Amen.
It takes an investment of time to understand the faith. It takes continued investment of time to grow a deeper sense of faith.
