Faith is a strong staff.

Faith is a strong staff—a staff which grows. It may be just a tiny reed in the beginning; something you would protect, something you dare not lean upon for fear it should snap. Yet it can mature; it can grow so strong that the whole weight of your physical life can rest upon it. But that staff can only grow by experience, only by testing its strength, only by patience and concentration. Yet, in the end, you have got that which can take you out of the valley up the steep hillside, over rocks and boulders, over deep ravines—safe into the Father's Home.