6 Stages of the Journey of Faith and Why You Need to Know Yours

I love following trails. The less traversed the better. The woods of North Idaho, the lake trails of Minnesota, the four-wheeler paths of Alaska, and the jungle routes of Northern Thailand are my happy places. If you tell me there’s a path to follow my feet are almost compulsively drawn there.

This hasn’t always been the same source of joy for those who love me as it has been for me. Take that one time in Israel, for example. I was seventeen (and perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank-you-very-much) when our tour bus stopped in a quiet parking lot. We were at The Gates of Hell. I’m not kidding. This was the physical location where Jesus stood with His disciples when Peter proclaimed that He was the Son of God and Jesus replied, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” (Matthew 16:18)

It was a wild declaration in a wild place: a place where a pagan temple once stood and children were sacrificed at the gates of hell. Jesus stomped all over that playground of idolatry with the feet of the Living God. The gates of hell will not prevail… 

Just sit with that thought for a moment.

After being introduced to the significance of the place, I heard our tour guide say, “We’ll gather back on the bus in thirty minutes. There’s a trail over there that leads to a stream and the bathrooms are by the shop in the parking lot.” Now, this is apparently not what everyone else, including my parents, heard. I heard “go explore” while they heard “head for the bus.”

However, there was that trail, and without a second thought, I was off.

By myself.

A blonde teenager.

In Israel.

At the GATES OF HELL.

Well, we all have those moments when we’re not so smart, right?

I remember it so clearly: the meandering dirt path, the sunlight through the trees, the dancing brooke, the sweet conversation I had with Jesus. I was in my happy place.

I didn’t stay long, trying to be mindful of the time, and as I emerged from the woods onto the open trail, a man approached me. He was walking briskly and looked amused when he saw me. He said something into his radio, turned around, and motioned for me to follow him quickly. 

We jogged back up the path and when the bus came into view he simply pointed.

Everyone was on it. Waiting for me. Praying I hadn’t been kidnapped for ransom. My parents were thrilled that I was fine, and I was mortified.

Who knew a trail could cause so much trouble? I try to be a bit wiser now, but I still maintain that a trail is an invitation that should not be passed up. It’s leading somewhere. Maybe to a waterfall, a mountain top, a camping spot, or a placid lake, but if there’s a trail there it’s usually because people have trod that path before in search of the something that lies beyond the asphalt and concrete.

GROWTH AS A CHRISTIAN

So it is with the Christian life. We are all on a journey to the heart of God. We know it all starts with the exchange of Christ’s life for our own and it ends in the glorious eternity of dwelling with God in heaven, but what of the in-between? This messy, mucky, mixed-up middle ground? Is there sense or order to our development as Christ-followers?

The Bible speaks often of growth and development. As believers we move from milk to meat (Hebrews 5:13-14), maturing from receivers of simple truths to teachers of the Word, and Paul regularly prays for the church to grow in wisdom and understanding so they (we) can bear fruit (Colossians 1:3-11). Even the meta-story across Scripture of God’s plan and process through Creation, Fall, and Redemption paints the idea of movement through stages.

Our great Creator loves order. I think He even loves a good story with a beginning, middle, and end, and all the plot twists in between.

And it just makes so much sense to me as I see countless parallels between our lives lived in the body and our lives lived in the spirit. Parenting would be chaotic at best if we couldn’t foresee the predictable stages our children would progress through: infants to toddlers to children to adolescents to young adults. Can you imagine working on potty training if you had no hope that it was only for a season?

The Christian life would be uncertain at best if we had no hope of future glory and the sanctification process along the way. We need markers of development to assure us that we are making progress and that we are indeed on the same path of faith our spiritual role-models walked. Especially when we hit that really gnarly bump in the middle (more on that in a bit).

THE 6 STAGES OF THE JOURNEY OF FAITH

While what I’m about to present to you isn’t specific biblical truth, I do believe it is spiritual wisdom. Saints throughout the ages have looked for ways to understand the journey of faith, including John of the Cross and Bernard of Clairvaux. More recently The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich has provided helpful commentary on the predictable path we find ourselves on as we walk toward Christ-likeness.

Here is Janet’s comprehensive description and recent podcast if you want to dig deeper.

For our purposes, I’ve simplified their model a bit. And I really felt that it needed a map, of sorts. So here it is, in the best stick-figure glory I could muster:

As with any model, it’s not perfect, and we don’t always fit neatly into the categories, but much like how personality profiles can help us understand ourselves and operate with greater understanding toward others, this spiritual-life profile can help us navigate the work of God in our lives and move forward with greater trust and hope.

STAGE ONE: THE SEARCH FOR GOD

We recognize our need for a savior and accept His invitation to new life. This is the point of belief, of being born-again.

STAGE TWO: THE LIFE OF DISCIPLESHIP

We are hungry to learn everything we can about God and what His truth means for our lives. We want to belong and will search for a community of faith where we are fed from the Word.

STAGE THREE: THE PRODUCTIVE LIFE

We want to give back to the God who gave everything for us. We start looking for ways to share our faith and do good deeds. We ask if we have a personal calling from the Lord and take a step of faith to pursue it (i.e. taking a role in the church, starting a home Bible study, helping a neighbor in need, focusing your craft more on spiritual matters, becoming a pastor or missionary, viewing parenting as discipleship).

STAGE FOUR: THE WALL AND THE WILDERNESS

Often triggered by some form of suffering, we are suddenly made aware that what we are doing for God isn’t working anymore. We might feel burnt out from all our activity in the previous stage or we might be frustrated that we’re not seeing transformation in our own lives or the lives of those we are trying to reach. We often revert to more learning to become better equipped or redouble our efforts of service to hopefully see results. But eventually, we still end up at the wall with the choice to keep on looping backwards in the journey or to surrender to a major work of the Spirit in our lives.

STAGE FIVE: THE JOURNEY INWARD

We accept that deep change is necessary and we struggle through a season of deconstruction as God works with us to expose idols and egos and His heart in pursuit of our own. We begin to reconstruct our relationship with God based on intimacy, and a new sense of self-realization leads to more profound God-realization.

STAGE SIX: THE JOURNEY UPWARD AND OUTWARD

We learn to live out the greatest commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and from that life of God-love the second commandment flows: Love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-39) We may still revisit times of testing and refining in the wilderness, but hope is secure and our hearts are fully surrendered.

WHERE ARE YOU ON THE JOURNEY?

Can you see your spiritual life at one of the points on this map? The first time it was introduced to me at a Spiritual Director’s training, I felt incredibly relieved, perhaps like a puberty-stricken girl who was finally told that armpit hair was normal. I talked about it for days to anyone that would listen. Did you know that we have stages of spiritual development just like physical development? Have you ever heard that hitting the wall is a normal and even necessary part of Christian growth? My own story suddenly makes so much sense now! Oh yeah, I totally geek out over stuff like that. 

But even if you don’t get as excited about it as I was, I hope that you find it encouraging to know that we are all on this journey together. It’s a beautiful path, and not as dark or mysterious as you once thought. No, it’s not going to be easy, but the best things rarely are. 

So keep pressing on, dear one. Further up. Further in.

Try writing down the bullet points of your own faith journey. Where do they fall on this faith map? What is God saying to you about the stage you are in right now?

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My own journey through the wilderness and how I made it over the wall is recorded in my book, Colliding with the Call: When Following God Takes You to the Wilderness.