Hiking the Clouds: The Journey to Mature Faithਨਮੂਨਾ

Faith

Faith is awareness. More than a belief system, faith is a spiritual awakening that slowly aligns us with ultimate reality.

And ultimate reality is this: God exists and He is love.

When we awaken to faith, we begin to see with new eyes. For some, it happens in an instant—like my friend Marcus, who sobered up the moment someone read him a verse from Isaiah. For others, like me, it’s a slow dawning over years of small awakenings. Either way, faith opens our eyes to a deeper reality. We come to see that “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

This spiritual awareness shifts how we see everything. Without it, we live enslaved to physical reality—our health, our money, our fears, our need for control. When Adam and Eve sinned, they lost touch with the connection between spiritual and physical reality. Separated from this awareness by a veil, they felt naked and vulnerable (Genesis 3:7).

Physical awareness apart from spiritual awareness brings anxiety and fear. “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.”(2 Corinthians 3:16) We begin to understand ultimate reality: we are secure in Him.

The journey of faith is the process of coming to awareness of what is true about God and ourselves.

Hebrews 11 describes faith with two key words: assurance and conviction. (Greek: hypostasis and elenchos)

Assurance (hypostasis) is like a title deed—it gives us confidence that what God promises is already ours. Conviction (elenchos), the other half of faith, is the deep inner knowing that carries us into the unknown, even when the path feels cloudy. Both are essential.

We must embrace both elements of faith.

In the first half, God often meets us in tangible ways. He provides. He answers prayers. He proves Himself faithful. Like Jacob at Bethel (Genesis 28:10-22), who saw a vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder, we learn that God is real and He blesses us. He is far off, but promises to care for us. Our instinct, like Jacob’s, is to make deals with God: If You bless me, I’ll follow You.

But the second half of faith looks different. Jacob later found himself wrestling with God face-to-face. (Genesis 32:22-32) He begged again for a blessing, but instead of giving him what he asked for, God wounded his hip and gave him a new name: Israel. Jacob left that encounter limping, but also transformed.

This is the picture of mature faith. At some point, our walk with God leads us into wrestling. We experience suffering, loss, or disillusionment. We realize faith isn’t about control or quick answers. The illusions of the first half shatter. But in that wrestling, we discover something far greater: conviction. We may feel less certain about formulas or easy answers, but we know—more deeply than ever—that God is real. And we trust Him, even in mystery. We slowly learn to love God unconditionally.

The second half of faith can feel disorienting. It’s often marked by what St. John of the Cross called a Dark Night of the Soul. But it’s also the place where we grow into love. We learn that life’s biggest questions aren’t problems to solve, but tensions to hold. We become less obsessed with being right, and more committed to being rooted in Christ’s love.

This is the journey of faith: not a straight climb, but a perpetual ascent, one step at a time. Each stage builds on the last. Early assurances of God’s provision lay the foundation. Later conviction through wrestling with God deepens our roots. Together, they transform us into people who reflect Christ’s endless love.

And here’s the hard but beautiful truth: once you’ve seen, you can’t unsee. Once faith awakens you, you can’t go back. The only way forward is higher. It’s not always easy—but it’s always worth it.

The heights you climb to in the journey depend greatly on the strength of your foundation. Which is why Peter laid out the first step on the journey that we’ll talk about next.