I love to study theology. It's the best feeling in the world to pick out a topic to study and examine it from all different angles until you feel like you have a grasp on the different opinions and feel that you can form your own opinion on that topic. Then you can take that opinion and share and discuss it with others of the same or of different opinions.
A few months ago I started feeling like I was focused too much on theology. I felt like the reason I was studying was simply to be able to sound smart in discussions with other Christians.
I decided to stop focusing on theology so much and start focusing on prayer and simple reading.
That hasn't been working out to well.
Not studying deep into topics left me feeling like I didn't really want to read at all. I felt like the word wasn't getting to me because I was basically just skimming the surface. Now any bible reading is good. But for me personally I feel that I don't get as much out of it unless I study into a certain topic deeply.
My prayer suffered as well. It's hard to talk to a person that you don't spend time with every day. And it's hard to spend time with someone when your not taking the time to learn more about them. I wasn't learning anything new about Christ and my relationship with him and what I did know became fuzzy. It's hard to want to spend much time in prayer when things become fuzzy.
So...My conclusion is that (for me personally anyways) my relationship with Christ thrives when I am interested in studying his word. I just have to ask Jesus to keep my pride in check when I start feeling like I'm pretty smart.
