A companion study inspired by What Are You Seeking? I have continued thinking about Sunday’s message, particularly the idea that we can mistake the growth of our knowledge for the growth of our soul. When I said it, I meant it, but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered why we so easily make this mistake Knowledge gives us visible evidence of progress. There are many passages that I understand today that would have confused me several years ago. There are doctrines I once struggled to articulate, just flow form my lips today. And most importantly I can recognize bad interpretations of Scripture more quickly than I once could. This is proof that growth is taking place, as it should because scripture repeatedly encourages us to grow in knowledge. (2 Peter 3:18) and to study to show yourselves approved (2 Timothy 2:25) But I am beginning to see that knowledge and spiritual maturity are not necessarily the same thing. Paul's warns us about knowledge for the sake of k...

How our expectations can keep us from recognizing God's work. We like to think we enter conversations with open minds, ready to hear whatever the other person has to say. But more often than we'd like to admit, we step into those conversations with our conclusions already formed. We aren't simply inviting dialogue—we're expecting the other person to confirm what we've already decided. And that's exactly what happens when we come before God. Before we ever ask Him to answer, we've often decided what His answer should look like. But what happens when God's answer doesn't fit the conclusion we reached before we ever prayed? Most of the time, it catches us off guard because our expectations have become so deeply rooted that we never stop to question them. Instead, we find ourselves saying things like, "God isn't listening," "God didn't answer my prayer," or "God has gone silent. We rarely stop to examine our o...