As my friend (and boss) Ted Harro often points out, it’s easy to fall into confirmation bias: we tend to gravitate toward people and perspectives that confirm our own beliefs and interpret information in a way that proves we were right all along.

But spiritual growth requires honestly engaging with people and ideas that are different than what we already think.

This can be uncomfortable.

I recall my first year in a Christian spiritual formation degree program. We read books that challenged my long-held assumptions. I talked and prayed with classmates whose doctrine and politics weren’t a mirror image of my own. Even though it was a safe space, at times I felt threatened. If you dug deep enough into that fear, I suspect I was afraid of losing the only God I’d known — the one who dwelt inside the box of my beliefs. But gradually I opened up, I asked questions, I allowed buried doubts to surface, and — in and through community — I learned to listen to God and others. All this stretched and shaped me.

Without a doubt there are unwise ways to explore beyond our spiritual comfort zones. It is treacherous to wade into unorthodox waters. But within the banks of the Apostle’s Creed flows a deep and rich river comprised of several great streams of Christian tradition. It awaits our exploration, and there are many openhearted Christians — though they may seem hard to find — willing to swim those waters. That’s a good thing. Because in the Christian life it’s always a good idea to heed the advice often posted by deep water: ​“Never Swim Alone.”

Richard Foster documented the beauty and pitfalls of various Christian traditions in Streams of Living Water. The origins of that book and of Celebration of Discipline can be traced to his early days in ministry, when as a newly minted pastor he quickly discovered his own spiritual bankruptcy in the face of his congregation’s need. This led him to the Devotional Masters — Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi and Julian of Norwich and many others — and into the friendship and teaching of people like Dallas Willard. ​“What I found,” he writes, ​“settled me, deepened me, thickened me.”

How many lives in turn have been settled and thickened because Richard took a risk to dive deeper with Jesus? Certainly mine. And how many lives will be enriched as you and I take that risk, too? God only knows. But I think it’s more than we realize.