We can understand what we need to understand about God, but God doesn't reveal beyond what we can bear. Growing in Christ is a wonderful experience. A Christian may have grown in Christ not knowing how or why. Just the desire to grow is an indication of growth.

In order to grow in Christ, you must have both God's process and His pattern. His process will lead you into His pattern. His process is that He leads us and then empowers us to do His will. His pattern is Christ, the Body. God's Pattern is the Church, not the tinsel church with all its man-made forms and rituals, but the Church that is after the pattern of Scripture.

Reading the Word is one of the things that God will lead you to do. So, reading the Word is part of the pattern, but it is God's process that makes it possible for you to effectively read the Word. The Word of God will cause you to grow. When you read the Word of God, allow God to speak to you through His Word rather than trying to figure out the Word. When you try in your own effort, you frustrate the Grace [free gift] of God. God wants to impart the understanding to you. When you try through your intellect, you are saying to God that you don't need His revelation but that you are self-sufficient. You are not able to understand unless God pulls back the veil of your flesh. So, learn to lean on Him. Learn to seek Him. Rather than seeking to have knowledge, seek Him in Whom all knowledge dwells.

The same is true of prayer. Prayer will cause you to grow. Spend time in prayer and meditation before God. And the same could be said for every part of the pattern that we can see in Scripture as God reveals that pattern to us.