In our experience, people often feel isolated when they discover that type of question, as if they are the only ones asking it. For whatever reason, questions like this often feel like obstacles to our faith. They may feel forbidden, out-of-bounds. In the Bible, we read about characters like Job and Nicodemus asking questions that sound like ours, only to hear what sounds like a very touchy response from God.
What if questions are an essential part of our personal faith?
What if we need questions to survive and grow as a community of faith?
You want to go there, don’t you? You want to believe that dialogue with God, relationship with God, requires questions.
Well, guess what? You’re in good company.
When we read scripture carefully, we discover questions everywhere. Hundreds of questions. Questions are created in the Garden of Eden. In the Gospel of John, the first thing Jesus says to someone after his resurrection is a question.
Like people, these questions come in every type. Some are pesky. Some prefer to hide in the shadows and never be noticed. Some shout loudly, repeatedly, and beg attention. Some walk with us to the grave. Similarly, like people, once you start engaging questions, you quickly discover how hard they are to understand. Questions are hard to pigeonhole. They defy stereotyping. And no matter how hard we like to think they can stand alone, they almost always require some kind of relationship.
Once you start noticing questions, once you start looking for them in the scripture, you see them everywhere. Everyone has one, even if they keep it in their back pocket or tightly trapped behind their teeth. Biblical people have plenty of questions, too.
