Questions and God
Life is full of questions. There are everyday questions such as, how are you? What you up to? Do you own your own home? Can you hear me now? and Do you want fries with that?
We can major some of the major milestones of life with questions? When did you get married? How many children do you have? Where were you when JFK was shot? …when the towers fell? Small questions with big answers.
There are the more serious questions. What do you mean you don’t love me anymore? Doc, is it cancer? How long do I have? Life is full of questions.
The Bible is filled with questions. By one count Jesus asked 307 of them. Conrad Gempf, author of Jesus asked says “Religious teachers are supposed to be full of answers, aren’t they? But you’d never know it from listening to Jesus talk. Suprisingly, he was full of questions.
God also asks many questions. His first was to Adam in the garden, “Where are you?” Job 38 and 30 contains the longest series of questions in the Bible, and it is God asking Job what he knows about being God.
We also find many tough questions asked of God. David asks, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jeremiah questions, “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” Paul pleaded with God to remove his thorn in the flesh. If the Bible is any indication, God isn’t afraid of our hard questions.
If we are to be a safe place for hurting people, we need to be a safe place for doubts and questions. God is big enough to handle them, so we need to be gracious enough to let people ask them, and then love them as they wrestle for an answer. It’s okay to ask God why.