A man shared how, in much younger days, he walked more than a hundred miles to see Niagara Falls. When he was about seven miles from the Falls, he heard what he thought might be the thunder of the crashing waters.

When he asked a man working on his house if these were the falls that he could hear, the man replied, “It could be, but I don’t know because I’ve never been there!”

Many of us are in church but don’t have a personal, up-close relationship with God; His love is so near and yet so far from us. The easiest way to strengthen our faith in God is to have had a close encounter with God’s love.

You can love based on what someone has told you about God’s love, but you won’t grow in love unless you get close to God. Growing in love with the Father is the secret of long-lasting faith because no one ever doubts His lover.