17 Harsh Truths I Wish I Learned as a Baby Christian

Nobody discipled me early on. I was totally kind of on my own when it came to maturing in my faith walk. Maybe that was because I was raised in the church and everybody just kind of assumed I was fine. But looking back, I really feel like I learned how to mature in my faith through the confusion of misused Bible verses, church cliches, contradictions, debates, and just stumbled my way through my faith walk. So today, I want to share with you 17 harsh truths I wish I learned sooner as a baby Christian.

But I got to be honest here. I'm always hesitant to refer to myself as not a baby Christian because I always want to keep a healthy baby Christian mentality that leads me to humility and always learning and growing. I feel like that will never really fail you as long as it's a healthy humility. But at the same time, there's these hard truths that I wish I learned earlier on. Whether you're new to following Christ or you've been following him for a while, but you still kind of feel like you're not growing in your faith walk, this video is for you. And if you've been following Christ for a while, I'd love for you to add to it in the comments. Let's begin.

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Hi friends, welcome back to the channel. If you're new here, my name is Faith Wilmack. I am a pastor's wife and kind of like a content creator. Got a new book coming out. Where is it? We'll put it right here. It's supposed to sit here. This is No More Boring Bible Study: How to Love and Fast on the Word of God. That's coming out. I'm a mom and I've been a believer for a while. Technically raised in the church, but it wasn't, you know, until I got to an age where I could actually take it seriously that I actually feel like I had a relationship with God and was growing in my relationship with God. And the sad thing is is it's not like you get a badge like you're in Girl Scouts and all of a sudden you're like the next level Christian. It's not even like you look back one day and you're like this was the day that I became not a baby Christian. Like it's all relative. It's all just like a spectrum of growth. And sometimes honestly growth looks like this. You know, it's not always a mountainous slope.

But today I want to give you the things that I wish I knew sooner on in my faith walk that I know will take your relationship with God deeper, your Bible studies deeper, your worship and faithful following of Christ stronger. These are things I wish I learned sooner.

So, first off, the first thing that absolutely came to mind the quickest is what people think about you, especially people of the church doesn't actually matter. As somebody who grew up in the church, I held what the pastor thought of me, what my Sunday school teacher thought of me, just like the good people in church, I held what they thought about me super duper high. It was almost like I projected what they expressed to me. Like, if I felt loved by them or whatever, that's what I projected on my relationship with God. If I felt loved by my Sunday school teacher, then that meant God loved me. if I felt like my pastor approved of me or the popular people at church approved of me that I felt like God approved of me. Now, there's a myriad of reasons why this is really problematic for our theology or our walk with the Lord. But most simply put is that fear of man will eventually, if not immediately, lead you away from following God and instead to following man.

Now, of a similar vein is number two. I wish I learned earlier on that it's not about the Bible trivia. It's not about the sword drills. It's not about the performance in those church circles. Modesty rules, church attendance, number of Bible verses you have memorized. It's not about those things. Those things can get really legalistic really quickly. And worst of all is you can win all the sword drills. You can memorize all the Bible verses. You can be the best Sunday school student ever, but still not really have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I remember I even went on and I studied Bible in my undergrad degree. Like this is before seminary and all of that. And I remember getting to the end of my four years of studying and being like, "They never had us memorize that much scripture. I still don't feel like I've mastered the Bible text. I don't know all the Bible facts." I remember like telling my professors that like I feel a little disappointed that I didn't come out of this as like necessarily a better Sunday school student because that's not what it's about. Now, did I come out as a stronger theologian? Absolutely. Did I come out way wiser and much better exe and all the things? Yes, absolutely. But I think church culture can at times feed into us this mentality that's all about performance and measuring up and doing more and essentially getting the next Girl Scout patch. I don't know about you guys, but I was a Daisy for like a year and I didn't get all of my pedals and I did not feel worthy.

Now, taking this even another level further, some of you guys may not like me for saying this is legalism is a vicious trap. There was a long season of my walk with the Lord where I was like, "Yeah, legalism isn't great, but it's leading me in obedience so I can tolerate it." It was like a forgivable sin. I knew that in my head I was relying too much on my works to earn my salvation, but it was like, "Yeah, but it's leading me to obedience. It's leading me to worship more. So, it's not like that bad." But friends, a religious behavior, memorizing scripture, going to church every single Sunday, having the perfect modest outfits and being at all the soup kitchens and doing all the things that you define as good Christian would do, doesn't mean that you're also spiritually mature. Holiness isn't church attendance or rules or memorization or anything like that. I'm almost now weary of when I start to become so arrogant my walk with the Lord where I start to feel like I figured things out. That's way more scarier to me. I always want to have a humble awareness that I don't have all the answers. I don't have it all figured out and I'll never measure up. Rules and checklists are some of the greatest threats to our spiritual walk that I think the enemy throws at us because he would love for us to become so belligerent to think that we've earned our salvation.

Now, just when you think you might have this whole video figured out, let me flip to the other end of the spectrum cuz I truly have been through it all. On the other end of the spectrum, I went through years where I viewed passion as maturity. If my hands were raised in worship, if tears were falling down my face, then that meant I was more mature spiritually speaking or more holy in some spiritual way. Zeal without conviction and wisdom is just really theatrics. I can be zealous and be led off a cliff if I'm not rooted and grounded and anchored in truth.

Now, if you are feeling defensive at this point in the video, that's kind of a little good because that might possibly mean that this next one is for you and also for me. The next lesson is lurggical worship isn't dead worship and it's also not more righteous. But for a long period of my spiritual walk, I thought of like more lurggical serious worship as either more holy or less holy. They didn't have their hands raised, so they were less holy, or they were more serious, and they weren't being led by too much emotion, so they were therefore more holy. And neither of those things is biblical. It's just me trying to make sense of differences. Now, I will say the creeds, the hymns, the confessions of faith, all of those things are so incredibly theologically rich and they were so worth incorporating into your prayer life, your worship, etc. But it doesn't make you more holy, and it doesn't make you less holy.

Next up, I wish I knew to understand denominational differences earlier on in my faith walk. The sooner you understand denominational differences and why they're there, the sooner you can give grace with fellow believers and you're not like fear-mongered away from other Christians. Now, this does take a little bit of time. This does take a little bit of Googling. There are a lot of great resources online, but I see a lot of people, even in my comments, say, "Oh, they're a false teacher because they baptize babies or they only baptize believers or because they take communion this way or they worship that way." And most the time, I would say 90% of the time, the people haven't really genuinely listened to the other side of the argument and why they hermeneutically got there. Like, they're understanding scripture a different way than maybe you are, but most of the time they're wanting to be faithful to scripture just the same. And so I really wish I put in the time sooner on to understand some of those big debates around baptism, the sacraments, worship, to understand differences better. And the debates around them better to give grace.

There's also like the big baby Christian pothole is like a lot of them just go to non-denom churches and they say, "Well, I'm safe because I'm non-denom." But what they don't realize is they're still totally being fed denominational theology. It's just it doesn't have the label. So maybe it's even more problematic. Theology is theology. it's going to be leaning towards a theological camp, no matter if it's labeled non-denom or not. And so, so many baby Christians think it's bad to be Presbyterian or Lutheran or Anglican. And whether or not it is or not, they don't even understand the debates around it. They don't know what makes a Methodist Methodist. I have so many people when they find out our denomination or my husband's a pastor and you know his theological takes on things, they're like, "What?" They wouldn't expect it of me. One, because I'm more gracious with theological debates cuz I understand them. but two because they would typically say that we're the bad guys, but they've never wrestled with the debates. So, I would encourage baby Christians to ask questions and to not feel like they can't ask questions. It will only mature them faster along.

Of that same vein, biblical history is really important to understand as soon as possible. You want to get down the story line of the Bible ASAP. The Bible is a story of God redeeming his people for his glory. You want to get that down like as soon as possible because that informs the way that you read the entire Bible. It's a story of God redeeming his people for his glory. It's about him. And that shapes so much of the richness that a lot of people miss because they're looking for themselves. But there's also so much about biblical history. Like you want to have a good idea of what was going on, the exile. A lot of people misunderstand the prophets cuz they don't even know what was going on with the exile or the restoration. Ezra and Nehemiah. Again, there are a lot of good resources online that help summarize the Bible. But getting that underneath your belt sooner than later is only going to help you in reading the Bible, in reading the Gospels, and reading Genesis, etc. The longer you put that off, the more confused you'll be, and the more it will delay your ability to mature and grow and really understand biblical text.

Next up, and y'all are going to chuckle at me because if you've been a Bible nerd, you might have seen this coming, but I wish my baby Christian self knew to get a Bible dictionary sooner. I know, I know that's very Bible nerdy of me to say, but truly a Bible dictionary has transformed my Bible studies. Again, you just look up all the nouns, all the persons, places, and things in a Bible dictionary. And it will automatically transform your Bible studies by taking it so much deeper. I didn't really, really, really see the depths of it in my Bible studies and truly understand how important it was until after seminary. And it wasn't because I learned it in seminary or in my biblical and theological degree. It was because I just discovered it on my own. So, it's not like a formal education thing sometimes with these lessons. It's just you don't know what you don't know. And so many Christians today aren't utilizing their Bible dictionaries like they should and therefore struggling more in their understanding of the Bible and therefore they're not enjoying the Bible.

Next, I wish I learned sooner as a baby Christian how important it is not to isolate yourself. As a kid growing up in the church, I think my parents were like, "Oh, you've got youth group once a week. You're good." Or like you'll find Christian friends at school. It was more like checking the box. like she's in youth group, she's good. And I really wish I had somebody like one-on-one meeting with me weekly, discipling me. I really wish I had a tighter group of Christian friends. By the time I got to high school, I surrounded myself with Christian friends, but I really needed to have a diversity of influence in my life and definitely not just peers. And so, I really wish I learned earlier on my Christian walk how important it is to surround yourself with like a small group and go regularly. Don't quit because it's only going to get harder to get back into it. to have a mentor, to have prayer partners, to have people that hold you accountable, people you can call at 2 am, etc. And then once I had those things to stay in them, even through having babies and marriage and all of that, I think a lot of us drop out whenever we have a big change in our life. Oh, well, I'm going off to college, so I can't really like be mentored anymore. Who says, right? It's only going to get harder to get back into that because now you have a whole different lifestyle that you've never been in a small group during, you know, like it's it's only going to be harder to work that habit back into your new life. So, you might as well keep it going into your new life. And so, it got really hard like having kids, moving from different church to different church to new area of the country to surround myself with consistent spiritual influences and accountability partners and things like that. And I really wish I learned earlier on how important it is to prioritize that.

Now, this next one exposed a really ugly part of my heart that I didn't really know was there. So stay with me. The next thing I learned that I wish I learned sooner in my Christian walk is you don't have to lead to be serving. Early on as a new believer, I wanted to serve. And I think at least for me, the moment I get into serving context, like maybe it's at a soup kitchen or at a summer camp or trying to think about different things like in my college, you know, like I am happy to stack chairs. I'm happy to serve a meal. Like I'm happy to mop the floors and all those things. the longer I was in those situations, I would want to kind of like start leading others and get higher up onto like the food kitchen staff. As silly as that is, it's true. And I wish as a baby Christian, someone really encouraged me like, "No, just like spend 5 years here mopping the floors, put in your time to really like enjoy the simplicity of just coming to serve. You're not serving and leading, you're just serving." I think so often when we look at people serving in ministry, we look at the leaders and they're not serving often times with as much of a worshipful heart because a lot of times it's their full-time job or they're also happening to manage other people or they're also having to lead a whole team and oversee a whole team. They don't get to just show up and serve in the same way that you get to when you're just stacking chairs. I don't know if this made sense. Please don't twist my words in some weird way, but it's so easy to be get caught up in the well now I want to lead and you know I want to work my way up and eventually you just lose the heart of service. And so I wish I learned earlier on that like service like pure service it doesn't get better the higher up you get in those like service tiers or whatever. All of a sudden now I'm leading all the chair stackers. Like you get what I'm saying? The most pure worshipful form of service is actually when you are on the bottom just showing up not leading anybody just stacking those chairs. I think I kind of thought it would get better. It would feel more fulfilling. It would get more worshipful and it didn't. Read into that which you want to. I'm sure someone's going to twist my words.

Next up, something I wish I identified is really helpful. I was doing it, but I didn't realize how helpful it was, was doubling up your Bible reps. So, early on as a new believer, very hungry for the word, I was doing my Bible studies in the morning and the evening. I was like sixth grade, you know, doing like little like Nancy Lee Deamos kind of devotionals or now she's Walgmouth, but y'all get what I'm saying. Doing little middle school era kind of like devotionals. And because I was doing it in the morning and the evenings, I was pretty legalistic about it. But I was getting in that many more reps of where I just was able to feast on that much more scripture, write it more on my heart, you know. I was memorizing Bible verses in middle school. Who led me? I I don't know that that's just God, you know. And I was writing my little Bible verses on a sticky note and putting it in my planner. I had really good habits set. And when I went off to college, things slowed down. Now, I was studying Bible, so I was kind of like, I'm in the word all day long anyway. But it took me a couple years to look back and say, "Wow, wait, those years where I could just morning and evening start and end my day in the word grew me so much more than I ever realized." Because you're just doubling up the reps. So, I'm actually in a season where I would love to work back up to that. I know that's not feasible for everybody, but if I had realized how helpful it was for me in my spiritual walk, I think I would have stuck with it longer. And then, of course, once you drop a habit, it's harder to pick it up. Now, I got kids. Now I got a husband. you know, and now I got dishes to do at 9:00 p.m. It's just different. So, sticking with the habits that are working, just because you start college doesn't mean you don't need to be in the word as much.

Now, of this similar vein, I wish I knew earlier on that you don't have to read the entire Bible immediately. I think a lot of Christians, they struggle with how to understand the Bible. So, they're like, "Okay, I'll just read the whole Bible and then then I'll understand everything." And what you face when you do that is you learn, "Actually, this isn't necessarily helping me understand the whole Bible. I'm understanding some parts more and some parts a lot less. It's only given me a million more questions and now I'm falling behind on a Bible reading plan, right? Because you have to do a ton of reading to stay up afloat on those yearly Bible reading plans and therefore you can't go as deep. So what I encourage baby Christians to do is don't worry about trying to read the Bible through in a year. Just get in those reps, be in the word of God. I remember I was a baby Christian, but my church started reading through the Bible in a year and I felt very socially pressured to join them on that. and it sent me into this dry and barren wasteland of just reading to accomplish a task when I had previously been feasting on the word. But I felt the need to like keep up with my youth group and do the Bible reading and I was so lost and so confused at times because I wasn't actually studying. I was just reading. So I think a lot of baby Christians don't need to feel pressured into reading the entire Bible. Like there's a reason that Genesis and Exodus are so important. Just like stay there. It's fine. You don't have to go into Numbers and Deuteronomy yet. the Psalms, the Proverbs, Hosea, or Ruth, Esther, all of those are like popular, good books to read for a reason, right? And a lot of baby Christians feel socially pushed into reading the Bible because like as if they're not enough or they're not doing enough. And it's just this weird performative nature that sometimes will just send you your Bible reading into like this burnt out wasteland.

Next up, I wish I learned sooner that you don't have to understand everything about Revelation to be a faithful Christian. A lot of Christians, especially in the dispensational circles that I was raised in, a lot of them kind of impressed to me that if I didn't have like a solid esquetology, if I didn't know everything about the end times, that I wasn't a good Christian. And you just don't see that in scripture, right? Like even when scripture talks about being prepared as a defense for your faith or looking to the Lord's return, it's always in the context of preaching the gospel to the nations, not in fully understanding Revelation. In fact, nobody does, right? Like even the debates around revelation are often on very small passages of scripture. So I think a lot of Christians overemphasize the importance of revelation and in the process deemphasize the importance of preaching the gospel to the nations, making disciples, seeking the Lord and following the Lord to the end.

Now this next one isn't something that I learned until only really a few years ago truly and I wish I learned it sooner. And this is just the Matthew 7 rule of being aware of the fruit somebody produces. I for way too long, I'm ashamed to say, would just believe people when they said that they have a strong relationship with God. I would just mindlessly be like, "Okay, cool. Let's be friends when they said that they were pursuing the Lord or that they were reading their Bible." And I didn't take the time to discern, are they bearing fruit? In Matthew 7, Jesus talks about this with false teachers. And false teachers, you can discern if they're false teachers by are they bearing fruit. I think for too long I minimized the whole fruit thing and I had like believed the lie from so many people that it's like you're being judgy, you know? But then I continually found myself in situations where I was trusting people too much, getting walked all over, and then when I took a step back, I was like, wait a second, how could they do this to me? Do they not even love the Lord? And going, wait a second, they don't even bear that much fruit. They don't even look like Christ followers. But with cultural Christianity, so many people just slap that label on themselves. Yeah, I'm a Christian. And we have to discern, do you really love Jesus? Are you just saying that because it's a country club for you because it's a social party kind of thing for you. Or is it a I die on this hill, this is the cross I bear, like I follow in Christ's footsteps, this is the truth kind of conviction. And you got to look at that fruit. Are they plugged in with the Lord so that they're bearing fruit that looks like Christ? And I think the more I've done that, the more I've seen the Lord protect me from really like hurtful friendships or situations.

And so from this same vein though a little bit different again this is me being brutally honest if you were my sister and we're talking to Kai shop this is what I would tell her I have learned especially in the last couple years not to take spiritual advice from somebody I wouldn't want to switch places with now on like in even in the pagan world people talk about this like don't take advice from people you wouldn't want to switch places with and I totally agree like there's a level to which yeah if somebody's trying to tell you how to do whatever and if they're not living it out in their own lives why take advice from them but on a spiritual level I I think for a long time I wanted to stay humble and learn from other people. Anybody who's wiser than me, anybody who's older than me, age-wise. And looking back, I learned from way too many people who were so spiritually immature. They'd spend our conversations grumbling, complaining, not quoting scripture, quoting their own thoughts. But I just sat there all humble, like, "Let me just learn from you." Not trying to say that I'm super humble, guys. Like, I'm a sinner, too. Okay? But I think I was somewhere fed along the lines this idea of you aren't humble if you aren't willing to learn from everybody. And that's just not true. There are so many people who call themselves Christians that are not living following Christ. They're probably following like a weird like version of cultural Christianity meets like modern gnosticism or mysticism or new age stuff or you know all this kind of weird stuff out here in this world. And you do not have to learn from people just because they're older than you. like numerically speaking, if they're not spiritually wiser than you, then don't take spiritual advice from them. And I would sit there and try and reconcile what they said to scripture and really try and stay like humble about it. And finally, I just realized I would not want my spiritual walk to look like their spiritual walk. So why am I sitting here trying to take spiritual advice from them? They're not even reading their Bibles, you know? So anyway, I just want to give you that permission because I never heard anybody in the Christian circles talk about this, but this has been a very real lesson for me in the last like decade of my walk with Jesus. They're just sitting here complaining. They're not bearing any fruit. They don't even read their Bible. They don't like reading their Bible. They don't like worship. They don't like church. Why do I feel like I need to learn from them? Anyway, I'm getting too heated, but nobody's told me that. I had to learn that on my own.

Next up comes from something that I repeat all the time in my content. And you guys probably get annoyed with me, especially if you're a Patreon and you do my long Bible studies with me, cuz I do say this all the time in all the different passages of scripture, but Jesus is truly everything we're searching for, guys. Everything we're searching for. And I say that all the time because not only do we see that in scripture over and over again, but I've lived that in my Christian walk, especially in the last like 10 years. Just learned that over and over again. Growing up in Christian culture, I think I believed like, yeah, like God must come first. God is first. But I was also fed this weird form of like, but your husband is also oddly your savior and your pastor is also like like if you if you grew up in the church, you get it. Let me know in the comments. I I don't think I'm the only one here where we're fed this weird kind of like Jesus comes first, but then also if the church asks you to do something, you must do it and volunteer and be at that event, right? Or like your husband will step in one day and he'll save you. Or your kids, your kids will save you and bring you all the meaning in life. And we don't see those things in scripture. We see Jesus is our savior, not our kids, not our pastor, not our husband. Those though those things are all so good. They all have their place under Jesus. God has to come first. He has to be my main love in life or I will never love Joe, my husband, rightly or my children or my church rightly. And if God convicts me to not serve at that event at my church, then I have to follow God first before I follow the leaders at my church. Of course, within the realm of like biblical faithfulness, you know, obviously if my church says I'm walking in sin, I will consider their discernment and, you know, be under church discipline and all those things. But y'all get what I'm saying. in the realm of gray area. I think a lot of times we're like, "Well, my husband asked me to do this or my kids need me for this or my church needs me for this." And it's like, but where are you making those same kind of sacrifices unto the Lord, but the Lord needs my attention first? I'm really, really bad. Like, just real talk in a coffee shop. Again, my love language is acts of service. I'm really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really bad at serving everybody else and then putting myself last. And when it comes to my Bible study or filling up my cup or whatever, that really pours into my relationship with God where I have went above and beyond to make sure my boys got all their homework done and Joe feels loved and seen and my church is good and taken care of. And then I come before the Lord and I'm like, "Okay, Lord, I can give you my scraps. I can pray for like 5 minutes before I need to go to that field trip or volunteer at this event or go fold that load of laundry or whatever." And the Lord wants so much more than us. He comes first. He has to be our first love or he is being replaced with a very real idol. And I don't think we talk about that enough again in the church either.

And finally, this one is going to make you feel a little bit even more uncomfortable. So, just like buckle in, get ready. I wish I learned sooner in my Christian walk that tithing isn't just 10%. And that it's really, really good. I wish I learned sooner on in my Christian walk that even when I wasn't making any money as a middle school kid that tithing, worshipfully giving unto the church and ministries and this the disciplehip of other people is going to be one of the best lifegiving practices I could do in life that will fill up my cup so much and be one of the greatest joys in my Christian life. Give before you feel like giving. Give before you feel ready to give. Give more than you feel comfortable giving and give often. This regular giving isn't just because like scripture tells us that we live unto the Lord and we give our everything to God, but it's a giving that places everything you are in the hands of God and puts you continually in this uncomfortable spot of Lord, I need you and I am yours and everything that I am is yours. And so, it's just one of the greatest heart postures that I think again a lot of people don't talk about and it's almost icky when the church talks about it because it's like, yeah, well, you want me to give to you, right? But like I'm just a YouTuber. I'm not asking you guys to tithe to me or anything. And I just want to like personally testify and encourage you guys like giving is one of the most edifying, encouraging, worshipful things that you can do in your faith walk. And I wish someone discipled me to start it like day one and following Jesus because I was making a little bit of babysitting money. I was given like stuff for Christmases and birthdays. And man, if I just prioritized giving and grew up learning the value and the beauty of it, it just changes everything about the way that you view work, the world, worship, neediness, poverty, like everything. and it's just in the best way possible.

Now, these harsh truths are not meant to offend you. They're not meant to necessarily like challenge you in a bad way. And I'm not even trying to like wake y'all up, but they definitely woke me up at little moments in my faith walk to go, "Wo, I've completely misunderstood my walk with the Lord in this area." And let's just say the obvious, most Christians don't grow past spiritual childhood. They aren't maturing in our day and age. We have a lot of people coming to the faith right now, but not a lot of disciplers and I do feel called to do that in a weird way here on YouTube as much as I can through the interwebs and you know it's faulty but you get what I'm saying. I wish someone told me these things sooner along. So if you're ready to build depth, not just vibes, not just hype, in the next video I'm going to show you like just a very realistic day in my life of my Bible studies. I get interrupted by my kids. I like ramble about resources and I flip through my Bible notes. like a very real what it looks like just on the dayto-day for me to do my Bible study, quiet time with the Lord. Click here and we can kind of Bible study together. I don't want you to follow me, but I want us both together to follow the Lord. So, let's do that here. I'll see you guys there. Bye, guys.

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