According to Hill, faith is a human act of will and a gift from God, involving deep emotions and trust in ourselves and others, and requiring us to be involved with other groups and communities. As it stands today, I believe that I can place myself in the middle range of Stage 4 of faith development. However, I wasn't always this confident in my relationship with God. Until recent changes in my life, there is no doubt in my mind that my faith could be categorized only in low Stage 3. Hill points out that faith is about the human response to experience, and after several turning points in my life I agree.

The beginning of my faith journey can be described as rocky, at best. Each Sunday morning my dad would stay home just so that he could catch every possible second of Sunday football coverage. I wasn't even...