Do you ever find yourself baffled in your spiritual walk? Have you ever discovered a profound spiritual insight that seems to work really slick then after a while it doesn’t? It’s like someone switched the game you were playing and neglected to tell you.

I have but I’ve also experienced something else.

In those times if I just pause, stop pressing forward with what isn’t working and honestly seek out fresh answers they appear.

I find I start to understand questions I’ve had. Often new light comes to challenges. And often I sense God’s leading in fresh ways.

I’ll read a scripture passage and see it in a whole new way. Another piece of a puzzle I’m wrestling with falls into place. I gain insights into this thing called life and my spiritual relationship with God.

Frankly, that brings joy and fulfillment like very little else.

Jesus promised his disciples would be given understanding of spiritual mysteries unlike the rest of the crowd milling around.

Then he said, “Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.”*

Wow, I’d like more of that abundance please.

*Matthew 13:12 (NIV)

Why is it so hard to understand spiritual secrets? I mean God wants us to live effectively in this amazing life he designed for us. So couldn’t he make it a little clearer?

Even the disciples asked Jesus, “So why do you teach the people using obtuse parables?”

Jesus responded, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.”*

Wow, that doesn’t seem very fair. In fact that’s always bothered me.

Why did he single out his disciples to allow in on the secrets and everyone else stumbles around in the dark?

Frankly, I’m not sure. But I do know that once I committed my life to Jesus the answers to spiritual questions became clearer.

And as I’ve lived purposefully trying to understand the insights accumulate.

Truthfully, I probably have more questions today than when I started this journey but I also understand in ways I had no idea about before.

I think the same was true for his disciples. They were all in. So he revealed to them spiritual secrets they just couldn’t hope to understand on their own.

Exactly what he promises to us.

*Matthew 13:11 (NIV)

I often find I have more questions than answers the longer I live this spiritual life. Now maybe I’m a little dense. I’ve been told that on occasion. But I think if we’re honest most of us feel the same way.

When I pastored a church I found this extremely unsettling. I had to come up with a sermon every week to bring spiritual insight. Yet, sometimes I just felt spiritually stupid.

I see a couple of responses pastors fall into.

Some just preach the same three point sermon over and over. New scripture, new stories, same plot. It worked once so they keep dragging it out.

Or the other solution that’s popular today is to focus on a few well traveled how-to verses. Then turn the Bible into a self development handbook.

Yet, the believers often stagnate. And the mysteries of true spiritual growth remain elusive.

I don’t believe that’s what God intended. He meant for us to keep growing closer to him and more into his amazing life.

And I’ve discovered that somehow as I keep turning to him for those insights he gives them but often irritatingly laced with more questions.

Do you ever feel this way?