Asking Questions

WHILE READING THE PSALMS, I’m struck by how often God is questioned. Why He’s allowing this. Why He’s forsaken that. Suffering makes you curious, and to me, it seems, being inquisitive is in fact a healthy part of prayer. Even Jesus, in His dying hour, asked God a question.

I’m not sure who taught us to deny God our questions. If I were to guess, it must’ve come from the elders of Israel who didn’t want us to be irreverent. They knew God was a consuming fire, who descended onto mountains that couldn’t be touched. Every generation after them is just as stiff-necked as they were and therefore prone to testing God like their soul wasn’t on the line. So I won’t deny them the dignity of having good intentions.

But neither should we deny Scripture’s testimony regarding this subject. Godly people ask God questions, and why shouldn’t they? His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. The way God moves doesn’t often align with our own logic since He doesn’t share our nature or essence. We run from pain; He uses it. We hate our enemies; He loves them. We try to hold onto our life with clenched fists, and He commands another way. The way of death which somehow, someway, causes us to find the life we thought we were losing.

Life with a transcendent God isn’t always going to make sense, and if that is the case, questions will be commonplace. When our aversion to prayerful curiosity has lifted, I often wonder if we will discover what we’ve withheld from God. And by what, I mean our very self. Avoiding curiosity can be a luxury in some sense. To ask anything at all, you have to acknowledge your intellectual limitations. But not only that: to ask anything at all, you have to sit inside whatever tension your body, life, and mind have brought about. Uncovering what hurts, hurts. Thinking about whatever is unclear is frustrating. If you decide not to ask God any questions regarding these things, you can go on with your life, maintain your sense of control and manufactured peace. But to do that is to deny yourself the opportunity of giving God your whole self.

What if asking God questions is one way to cultivate intimacy with God? What if your questions became a door through which you could be vulnerable with Him? What if your questions opened up your mind to read the Scriptures with Spirit-empowered expectation instead of apathetic drudgery? If, in fact, Jesus is the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24), what if, by asking questions, you discover God; and by finding God, you find your answers?