I see many people “losing their faith” because the god of their childhood is eclipsed but their growing knowledge and understanding and their faith crumbles like a sandcastle before the incoming tide.
There is of course a big problem if your god is merely a sandcastle of experiences from your childhood, when in reality He is the creator of the tide.
At whatever time in your life, when you first profess a faith in God, why would you ever consideration that that declaration would be static?
I think we give god a name, we give him a compartment in our lives, and we tick that box off our list. God does not want a name, a cubbyhole or our autograph. It is simplistic to say he wants us, yet he does, as a disciple, as a follower, in an ever-expanding relationship of information, knowledge, understanding and wisdom.
Look at it this way.
We may have a lot of information entering our lives. Not all of it true real or useful. So rather than being a sandcastle against a tide, be the tide, be the beach, be the ocean.
If we do not bring new information into our lives, good or bad, useful or useless, obvious or vague, then our faith will become stagnant, this can lead to one’s faith atrophying.
As we acquire information, we will order it, knowingly or unknowingly, the information will become knowledge, and from that knowledge, we will continue to build our lives, build our faith. We are meant to examine this information and this knowledge, to refine it, test it, see if it holds up to the light of day, can stand the test of time, for it to become understanding. We will discard some information and reinforce other areas of information. As we practice our understanding of our knowledge from the information we have, so we build wisdom into our lives. Wisdom is the ability to tackle the contradicting buckets of information we receive, the differing understandings we glean from these processes and create a cohesive faith from realising we can hold two competing views simultaneously. Uniformity is not the goal of faith. God is so much bigger than this.
We do not need to be afraid of the information surrounding us. We do not need to stand in front of this wave of information as if we need to protect our sandcastle of God. That He is fragile and information and rationality might make Him go, poof. Rather stand next to the Creator of the Universe and let the two of you process information so that you gain knowledge, and from this knowledge understanding, so wisdom can flourish, and you can thrive.
How big is your God?