Your understanding of who and how God is increases gradually and incrementally.1 You can’t know God completely all at once; you can only come to know him a little more than you presently do, over and over again.
Knowledge about God is sequential.2 In the path to God, each subsequent step builds on what came before. What God can teach us about himself depends on how much we already know about him. In the same way that new vocabulary words can only be defined by using words you already know, new knowledge about God builds on previously understood ideas about him.
Each step in the path towards God expands our view of what lies ahead.3 One reason that so many people think there is so little to know about God is because they have done so little to live up to what they claim to believe about him. Those who live as they believe Jesus would have found an unbroken pattern: each step reveals that there is much more to be learned than they had ever before supposed.4
Getting to know anyone is a process because it takes time and interactions to learn someone’s character. With God, the process isn’t just limited by time or interactions, but also your ability to perceive. In order to correctly see more of God, your awareness has to increase beyond its present limits.
God will reveal more about himself to you as you learn more about him and live what you learn. Because he reveals himself to people commensurate with their heed and diligence in seeking him, this happens iteratively over time. To maximize your progress with God, fully and instantly implement anything he shows you about himself in your life, and tenaciously seek to learn more about him in all available ways. While every step in the path must be taken sequentially, there is no limit to how quickly you can take them.
Footnotes
- 1. And I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall forsake all evil and cleave unto all good, that ye shall live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God. For he will give unto the faithful line upon line, precept upon precept; and I will try you and prove you herewith. (D&C 98:11-12) ↩
- 2. That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day. (D&C 50:24) ↩
- 3. But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. (Proverbs 4:18) ↩
- 4. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14) ↩