How to Know God More Deeply: Why Asking Questions Can Strengthen Your Faith

Aug 11

Written By Sophie

There was a time when I thought I understood what it meant to have a strong faith.

I believed in Jesus. I read the Bible. I went to church. I prayed. I knew the basic things I had been taught about Christianity, and for a long time, I assumed that was really all I needed.

Then I started asking questions.

The more questions I asked, the more I realized how much I didn't know. I began learning about the history of Christianity, reading about the early Church, and discovering how Christians who lived hundreds and even thousands of years before me understood Scripture and practiced their faith.

Some of what I found was beautiful. Some of it surprised me. Some of it made me uncomfortable because I realized that many of my assumptions about Christianity had come from the particular Christian environment I grew up in rather than from something I had ever taken the time to investigate for myself.

That process has changed the way I think about faith.

I used to think that asking too many questions might somehow weaken my relationship with God. Now I wonder if the desire to ask questions can actually be part of loving Him.

Because when you love someone, you want to know them.

What Does It Mean to Know God?

We use the phrase "know God" all the time in Christian circles, but I think it is worth slowing down and asking what we actually mean by it.

Knowing facts about someone and knowing that person are two different things. I could memorize everything about someone's life and still not have a relationship with them. At the same time, a relationship naturally makes me want to learn more about the person I love.

If I love my husband, I want to know his story. I want to know what matters to him, what makes him laugh, what he cares about, and what experiences have shaped him. Learning those things doesn't feel like homework. I want to know them because I love him.

I think something similar can happen in our relationship with God.

The more I love God, the more I should want to know Him. That means I can become curious about what He has revealed about Himself, what Scripture teaches, how the earliest Christians understood the faith, and why Christians throughout history have believed the things they have believed.

This is one reason I have started to see theology differently.

For a long time, the word "theology" made me think of complicated books, academic arguments, and people debating tiny details that seemed completely disconnected from everyday life. I never thought of theology as something that had much to do with my personal relationship with Jesus.

But theology is simply the study of God.

And if I genuinely want to know God, why wouldn't I want to learn about Him?

Is It Okay to Ask Questions About Your Faith?

I know this can be difficult for Christians who were raised in environments where questioning was discouraged.

Maybe you were taught that certain questions were disrespectful. Maybe you were told that you just needed to have faith and trust what you had been given. Maybe you have a question now that makes you nervous because you are afraid of where the answer might lead.

I understand that feeling because I have experienced it myself.

There is a particular kind of fear that comes with realizing you might have been wrong about something you have believed for a long time. It can feel safer to avoid the question altogether.

But I have learned that there is a difference between questioning because I want to reject God and asking questions because I genuinely want to know what is true.

Those are two very different postures.

When I ask God, "Show me what is true, even if it challenges something I currently believe," I am not necessarily moving away from Him. I may actually be inviting Him to lead me somewhere deeper.

Jesus Himself tells us to ask, seek, and knock.

That doesn't sound like an invitation to stop thinking once we have reached a certain level of religious certainty. It sounds like an invitation to keep seeking.

What Can We Learn From the Early Church?

One of the things that has fascinated me most throughout this journey has been discovering how early Christians understood their faith.

I had spent years reading the Bible without realizing how much Christian history existed around the text. There were Christians worshiping, teaching, debating, writing, suffering, and trying to faithfully follow Jesus long before any of us were here.

Learning about them has helped me see Christianity as something much bigger than my own personal experience.

I can look at how the early Christians interpreted Scripture and ask why they understood certain passages the way they did. I can read the writings of the Church Fathers and discover what Christians believed about baptism, the Eucharist, authority, worship, and the Church. I can look at the history of Christianity and see how different traditions developed over time.

That doesn't mean I automatically agree with everything I encounter.

In fact, sometimes learning more creates even more questions.

But I think that is part of the process.

If I am serious about knowing what I believe and why I believe it, I should be willing to learn from people who came before me. I don't have to assume that my generation has discovered something that every Christian before us somehow missed.

There is humility in remembering that we are part of a much larger story.

You Don't Have to Have Every Answer

This is probably one of the most freeing things I have learned while exploring my faith more deeply.

I don't have to know everything.

When you start studying theology or Christian history, it can become overwhelming very quickly. Every answer seems to lead to another question. You discover an early Christian writer you have never heard of, which leads you to another book, which raises another question about Scripture, which leads you into another part of church history.

Before long, you can feel like you need a theology degree just to figure out where to begin.

I have had to remind myself that I am allowed to learn slowly.

I can discover one thing and sit with it for a while. I can read a book without understanding every argument the author makes. I can ask someone who knows more than I do. I can say, "I don't know," without feeling like I have failed.

Faith does not require me to have every question answered before I can take another step.

Sometimes I simply need enough light to take the next step.

That has given me a lot of peace because I think there is a temptation, especially when we are searching for answers, to believe that we need to understand the entire road before we are willing to walk down it.

We don't.

We can keep learning as we go.

Why Learning About God Can Be an Act of Love

I keep coming back to the same question: If I love God, shouldn't I want to know Him?

I think the answer is yes.

That doesn't mean that everyone needs to spend their evenings reading ancient theological texts. It doesn't mean that knowing more information automatically makes someone more faithful. Knowledge without love can become pride very quickly.

But love naturally creates a desire to know.

When I care about someone, I pay attention to what matters to them. I want to hear their stories. I remember the things they have told me. I become interested in their lives because they matter to me.

So when I study Scripture because I want to understand God's character, that can be an act of love.

When I learn about Christian history because I want to understand the faith that was handed down before me, that can be an act of love.

When I ask difficult questions because I genuinely want to know what is true, that can be an act of love.

When I sit in prayer and say, "God, I don't understand this, but I want to," that can be an act of love, too.

What If Your Questions Are Actually Leading You Closer to God?

If you are in a season where you have more questions than answers, I want you to know that you are not alone.

Maybe you have started questioning something you were taught as a child. Maybe you have encountered a part of Christian history that you never knew existed. Maybe you are trying to understand why different Christians interpret the same Bible differently. Maybe you are simply realizing that your faith has become something you inherited rather than something you have personally examined.

Whatever the question is, you don't have to be afraid to bring it into the light.

Bring it to Scripture.

Bring it to prayer.

Talk to people you trust who are willing to have honest conversations rather than simply telling you what you are supposed to believe.

Read widely, especially from Christians who lived before our own time and cultural moment.

And give yourself permission to say, "I don't know yet."

I think sometimes we assume that faith means having certainty about everything. But there is a kind of faith that can say, "I don't know where this question will take me, but I trust God enough to keep seeking."

That is the kind of faith I want.

There Is Always More to Discover

One of the images I keep coming back to is the idea of discovering a cave filled with treasure.

You walk inside and find one beautiful thing. Then you realize there is another room. You explore that room and discover something else you didn't know was there. Every discovery seems to reveal another layer of depth.

That is what exploring Christianity has felt like for me.

The more I learn, the more I realize how little I knew.

There are writings I have never read, parts of church history I have never studied, theological questions I have never considered, and beautiful pieces of the Christian tradition that I am only now beginning to understand.

I could let that overwhelm me.

Instead, I am trying to let it make me curious.

I don't think I will ever reach a point where I can say I have completely figured God out. He is God, after all, and I am not. There will always be more of Him to know and more opportunities to grow in my understanding of who He is.

And maybe that is part of what makes a relationship with God so beautiful.

There is always more.

More Scripture to discover. More history to learn. More questions to ask. More ways to understand the depth of what God has done. More opportunities to let Him reshape the parts of me that still need to grow.

So if you have been afraid of your questions, I hope you will consider bringing them to God instead of running from them.

You don't need to know everything today.

You don't need to have every theological question answered.

You don't need to understand the entire history of Christianity before you are allowed to take another step.

You can simply start with a prayer:

"God, I want to know You more. Show me what is true, even when it challenges me."

Then keep seeking.

Keep asking.

Keep learning.

And trust that there is still so much more to discover.