Afraid-Questioning Everything

by Pastor Gina Johnson

We are going to continue in our movement through Lent with our own personal journeys of resurrection and really understanding who we are, created new in the image of God and in the love of Christ Jesus. Have you had a child in your life that was constantly questioning everything? And are they no longer what we typically think of when we think of children, but they're still constantly questioning everything? Exactly.

We don't tend to recognize how important questions are and sometimes we may think we like questions until it starts to become like this:

“It's time to brush your teeth.”

“Why?”

“Because you need to get ready for bed.”

“Why?”

“That's not for you.”

“Why that not for me?”

And it just goes on and on and on, you know? And at some point, I think we do stop asking questions. But is it really because we've come to know everything?

How many times do we come into a space where we stop asking questions because we think we won't ever get the answer we want to hear? Or we think we might not get any answer. Or perhaps we stop asking questions because we are fearful of the answer.

But the thing is, God never tells us to stop asking questions. Faith is not the absence of questions. There's a lot of time in our faith journey where it's like, just trust in God. Trust in the process. Trust that the Holy Spirit will lead you. “Well, what about—“ “No, no, no, no. You just trust. Just trust.”

The thing is, there isn't a place where God is saying, don't question me. God is bigger than any question we have. And God is so confident in what God is doing that those questions are welcomed. How else are we supposed to find our way?

There is a classic stereotype that was put on men when I grew up and it goes like this. If they were getting lost, they would not ask for directions. They would not ask, how do we find it?

My favorite is when we wander through a store of any kind. And we wander and wander because, you know, you could go to a Walmart in one place and things look one way. You could go to Walmart in another and things could look a totally different way. But instead of asking the individuals in the blue vest, we will spend an extra 5-10 minutes walking up and down the aisle because there's something that might go wrong if we go up to Sam in his Walmart vest and say, “Hey, can you tell me where I can find the canned goods? I just can't see them.”

Obviously, it's never that easy, but it's interesting to me how much we fear asking questions.

I know for me personally, I think it comes down to, I'm afraid that my question may be burdensome. You know, like everything is set, everything is this way. And sometimes I feel that if I stop and ask a question along the way, it may be burdensome.

I know on the reverse end of that, sometimes the reason that I don't like questions along the way is because in my mind, I have it all figured out. So, if you all just trust and just listen, I bet all your questions will be answered. Well, neither of those are not exactly the best way of thinking.

You should never be afraid to ask a question because you think you might bother someone, or you think it might be a dumb question. Isn't that the old classic adage? The only stupid question is the one that wasn't asked. I always loved the idea that if you have a question, ask it, especially when you're in a room or a crowd, because there's a good chance someone else in that room has that question.

The other reason I would encourage it in one-on-one situations, whether it's in relationships with your friends, with your family, your children, your neighbors, your boss, is that we're not mind readers. Now, I understand that we can have gifts of clairvoyancy, and you can also get to know someone for quite a period of time where you say, “Well, I just know how he would handle that. I just know what she's thinking. I've seen them do it time and time again,” but that's how we box someone in.

You never know when the person that you are speaking to has decided that day they were making a change based on the transformation they've been experiencing. So, like I always tell you all, when you meet someone, meet them brand new because we are forever growing. You're not the same person you were when you were here yesterday, when you were here last week. You're not going to be the same person tomorrow because you are in a constant process of unfoldment. You are in a constant journey of transformation.

And maybe sometimes it's like a rubber band. You can stretch a rubber band and then when you let it go, it returns to what you think is the same size. But if you were to take it under a microscope, you would see that the molecular structure has changed just a little bit.

Sometimes we hold back our questions because we think we know. But the thing is then we're not giving that other person a chance to help us in our doubt and our curiosity and we're not giving them a chance to show us perhaps they have grown. Perhaps they do know something more. Perhaps they have the answer to our question that's going to take away all the confusion, all of the curiosity.

It's easy to think that if you're asking questions, then it shows that you have doubt or fear. Now, there's a story in the Bible. It's in Mark chapter 9, where a father brings his son to Jesus and he says, “My son is possessed. And I took him to your disciples and they couldn't heal him. We've tried everything and these demons, they're doing things to my son that's going to have him meet his death.”

And he looks to Jesus and he says to Jesus, “Will you help me in my unbelief?” He says, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” He is questioning Jesus.

And did Jesus get upset with him for questioning him? Did Jesus say, “How dare you question my disciples? They've been traveling with me all this time. They know what they're doing. That must be on your son.”

Or did he say something like, “The fact that you questioned our miracle working ability, no cure for your son.” No, not at all. He took the time to speak with the gentleman and then he commanded that demon out of that boy to a point where it looked as if the boy died, and Jesus brought him back to life.

But this is just about that one part. Was there anything wrong with that father asking, why? How come after I took him to all these different places, why, why wasn't he healed? And be careful because sometimes you'll get thrown this answer. I always tell you all to move mountains, you need faith like a mustard seed.

Now I'm going to flip that coin over for a moment and don't let anyone tell you, “The reason it didn't get healed was because your faith wasn't strong enough. But if your faith was strong enough, then that healing would have come.”

Okay. Well, then that's when I'm going to look back at that person and say, “Well, if your faith is strong enough, you could overcome my lack of faith and do the healing anyway.” So don't let it trip you up with “he who has the strongest faith is going to get the healing.”

He who asked the questions, he who's not afraid to be curious, he who's not afraid to be fearful and doubtful, he who's not afraid to trust the process and still ask the questions will get to see more. We'll get to experience more. We'll get to understand more. And maybe it's not in that moment.

Maybe in that moment, that father walked away and said, “Well, he still didn't really tell me why the disciples weren't able to heal him, but it doesn't matter.” He took the time to ask the questions.

Jesus does not rebuke us. God does not rebuke us for taking the time to say why, but why God? Having questions will never mean you have a lack of faith.

One Sunday I asked a volunteer in service to play a game show I called “What’s In The Box?” We blind-folded our volunteer and led him up the stairs onto the chancel area where we had three boxes on a table. I told my volunteer he could come up with all his fear and doubts, but he wasn’t allowed to ask any questions. I had him reach into each box and try to guess what was in the box. Then I had him take off his blindfold and asked him what he thought was in each box. At the end I asked what he felt in getting ready to come up there.

He said, “I didn't know what I was getting into. It's kind of a weird feeling to feel things without seeing it first. I just hoped it wasn’t a mousetrap or something.”

I went on to ask if he’d had any excitement or curiosity and he said, yes, he had, but when I asked him if he had any fear, he responded, “No. I trust you.”

Isn't it interesting that sometimes we get called into a situation? Sometimes we choose to go into a situation. Other times we get volun-told into a situation. And, we can have all of these different feelings around it. Sometimes we don't even focus on our role because we're so upset on how we ended up in it. And other times like, “Gosh, I knew I should have never gotten involved in this situation or with this particular person, because now look what's happening. And I don't even know what's happening.”

As my volunteer came walking up there, he was willing, although he didn't know what he was getting into. He was trusting because of who was asking him. And he was curious. And I would think he was having a little fun with it as we were moving through it. Even though he said he wasn't afraid and he was curious, I'm sure there was still that relief that it wasn't a mousetrap, that it was really far more simple than probably any of us were thinking. And at the end of the day, it was some water, some beads, and some cotton balls.

I understand that not all journeys of life are going to come out that smooth with the laughter and the, “Ah, this was nothing,” like our “game show,” but the truth of the matter is, is when you are in a moment, it's the only place you can be. If in that moment you have a question, ask the question. God encourages you to ask the question.

And if you trust in God even a little bit, like my volunteer was trusting in me, then that should help release some of that fear. Imagine if you were traveling and all of a sudden you knew you were coming up upon a bridge. And as you start to walk on the bridge, you notice that there is fog as you get further along the bridge.

You might think, “Gosh, how long is this bridge? Where is the other side?” And if the fog gets dense and thick, “how do I know the bridge goes all the way?” You can't see the other side, but you keep walking. We took our volunteer’s glasses. We took his ability to walk up the stairs confidently, but he still did it because he trusted that despite the fog of the blindfold and Gina's silliness, that the bridge goes all the way to the other side.

Faith is being able to continue on that bridge, asking those questions, even when you can't see the full picture. And when you have a strong faith, it's never the absence of questions.

In Jeremiah 33:3, God says, “Call to me and I will answer you, tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

There are some things that the only answers that are going to come are from the divine, whether it's the divine within, whether it's through divine researching as in reading the Word, whether it's listening to a particular teaching, whether it's sitting in the silence, that's also divine. There are some questions that we have within us that are only going to be answered in those sacred places, in the sacred stillness. And just because it's the only place where we can find the answer, it doesn't mean we don't ask the question.

And just because we might be afraid of the answer or the answer might take longer than we expected, it doesn't mean that we don't ask the question. Faith is never shutting down your questions. It's bringing them up.

If you can't get answers anywhere else, it’s starting where you should have started to begin with by asking God. Ask God. He's not afraid of your questions. God is confident in all that God is. God's promise in Jeremiah is that if you seek, it'll be revealed to you. Isn't that what we just talked about the other day? Seek and you're going to find it. Knock, that door will be open to you.

So, let's be honest, as we're talking about questions, we don't always feel permission to bring up questions, especially in church settings, especially when we might be lower on the totem pole in an organization, especially after you've sat through a long engagement and everyone's tired and ready to go and you're like, but I got one more question, but you don't want to hold anyone up. We don't always feel that we have permission to ask questions.

And you know, it's not just about church and the workplaces and our families. Sometimes it's just in life. We're afraid to ask, “Why is this happening? How did this go wrong?” We're afraid to ask those questions when we're in grief. We're afraid to ask those questions when we're waiting.

I had a beautiful experience. I got to go to Warrensburg for a funeral of a very wonderful woman. It was the first time I walked into the Warrensburg church in over two years because I made myself a promise that I would not touch that door handle until I knew I could walk in there without regret or resentment. So I had to wait. And I had to trust that my question of, “God, when is it going to be the right time for me to walk into that church?” would be answered. Because when I was in that church in Warrensburg, I definitely didn't ever think I would be in the church in Maryville. So for whatever reason, that day was the right time.

And as I encountered different people, they asked all those wonderful questions like, how are the kids? How's your new church? Does it feel like home? Are you settling in okay? And then I had one particular person say, “Well, I'm just going to ask.” And I'm like, okay, I don't know what she's going to ask. She asked, “But are you still with Travis?”

I understand her hesitation. Did she feel like it wasn't her place? Was she afraid of the answer she was going to get? Was it that she knew that that was none of her business? I don't know. But I smiled when she asked me the question. Why do we build up so much fear around questions?

This is what I tell my children. And this is what I'll tell you all. Ask the question. I'm going to answer it if I know the answer. But you better be ready for the answer too.

You better be ready. Don't come up to me and say, “Well, do you think this looks really good on me?”

“Um, sure. What is your definition of ‘does this look really good on me?’”

Or, “Did you enjoy that dish?”

“I mean, yes, as much as I enjoy throwing up in my mouth.”

I would not say those things, but why do we ask the questions if we're not looking for the answer? What scares us away from the question?

What if we look at these questions, instead of looking at them with fear, we look at them as an invitation? An invitation to know more, an invitation to put an end to our doubt, to our fear and instead as an invitation to wrestle. And when I say the word wrestle, I don't know who comes up in your mind, but Jacob comes up in my mind.

Now, if you guys remember the story, Jacob was going to meet Esau, his brother, and they had had that falling out so many years ago. When he was going to meet his brother, he sent his servants, he sent his family, he sent cattle and crops and gifts on ahead of him, and he stayed back because he was afraid. He had questions.

“How is he going to greet me? What is going to happen? Does he want to kill me? Will he accept me? Will he accept my children? God, why am I going through all of this? Am I worthy of seeing my brother after I stole his birthright and his blessing? Am I even worthy of being alive and having all of the abundance I have when I'm about to meet the brother I cheated?” As all those questions came to his mind and he sent all of his family forward, he was alone. And he was there with his regrets and his worries and all of his what-ifs.

And then here comes someone who decides to help him in his questioning, to help him in his wrestling, to get with him. Jacob never saw it coming. And Jacob was wrestling with that individual who came in WWE style, tackled him down and wrestled with him through the night. And we learn that that was God.

And as they are wrestling, Jacob does not give up. He's like, “I'm going to hold on to this. I am going to fight and I am going to fight. I am going to figure out who this person is, what they're doing here and what this all means to me.”

He didn't just sit back with his questions. He wrestled them out and God did not reject him. He met him full on. He met him full on in a wrestling match to say, “I'm going to meet you here.” And you know what's interesting? In one of the most striking parts to me, one of the most impactful parts of this is how it all ends.

After they wrestle and wrestle through the night, God touches Jacob's hip socket and done. It's done. It's over.

And he gives Jacob a new name. He gives Jacob a blessing. Through all of the questioning, through all of the wrestling, Jacob gets his answers and he ends up walking away with a limp. God doesn't heal that limp. Jacob walks away with that limp and God allows him to take that limp with him.

That's what hits me when I listen to this, because that limp is a blessing.

Sometimes we wrestle and we don't get the answers that we wanted. Jacob wasn't necessarily looking to have his hip socket taken out and to have to walk away with a limp. But you know, maybe the reason that God touched Jacob's hip was because sometimes when we encounter God with our questions, it leaves a dent.

It leaves a mark. It changes us and transforms us in such a way that we will never be the same. And I know using a limp isn't always the best analogy, especially when we're all facing our day-to-day problems. I got mine, you got yours, right? But don't listen so much to the physical side, but to the mental part.

Maybe the reason that some of our questions leave us aching, leave us wandering away fearful and hurting and not sure what's next, is because those questions were meant to transform us. They were meant to encourage us to have a stronger faith.

They were meant to encourage us to go to the depths of our very dark night of the soul and pose the toughest questions, trusting that the answers will come. If not in that night, if not the next day, the answers will come. And not all questions are going to be answered the way that we want them to be answered.

But boy, they're going to shape us. Those answers are going to move us, they're going to shape us, they're going to stretch us, and they are going to empower us to transform into who we need to be. There was that time that we had a dinner at our church, and I won't get into all that it caused, but the reason we had that dinner was because there were some really tough questions that needed to be asked.

Sometimes we're not brave enough to say, “But why? But who are you? But why do you think that way? What makes this okay? How come what you see doesn't look like what I see? Why are your thoughts supposed to be more important than mine?” And we never ask some of these questions, but we all have our own. You know what they sound like. You know what happens when you get out of surgery and you end up feeling ill and recovery takes forever.

“Why God? I've been doing everything right.” Or when someone comes up to you and says, “Hey, are you still with that husband of 20 years?” Right now at the funeral, you're asking me this question? Are you kidding me? It's amazing.

But when the questions come up after we've sifted and filtered through them, let's take the time to seek the answers for them. They will humble us. They will wake us up. But if we really, really lean into the questions and lean into who we're asking, they will transform us in ways you would never believe.

There's a guy named Carl Jung. He is a famous psychologist, and he says that the things we fear and the things we avoid the most are the things that are going to lead us to transformation. He says what you resist not only persists but will grow in size.

Jacob literally was resisting meeting his brother. He was resisting trusting God. He was resisting stepping into the fullness of who God created him to be. So literally God came and wrestled him and forced the questions out of him, forced the doubt out of him and transformed his life. He walked away with a new identity. Yes, he walked away with a limp, but most of all, he walked away transformed.

So I want to invite you as you are moving through the week to seek within yourself those questions that are preventing you from moving forward. Maybe a question comes from a broken relationship.

You know, I've been blessed and I don't have his permission, but I haven't spoken with my brother in over a year and a half. We did not have a falling out. We don't have any animosity between us that I know of, but for whatever reason, I haven't spoken to him in over a year and a half. I saw something the other day that reminded me of him and I sent him a text message and I can't remember, but I think he took two days to respond. But his response was inviting me to start again.

What if he didn't ask me that question? What if me seeing that on the television, I thought, “My gosh, I wonder what Bryan would think if I sent him a text.” The answer was, “Well, Gina, why don't you find out?” My brother and I planned a phone date and to reconnect

That's an easy question. We have hard ones. We have challenging ones. We have embarrassing ones. But if we don't ask them, how can we really say that we trust God? How can we really say that we trust the path of unfoldment? How can we really say that we trust in ourselves to become who we're called to be?

So that's your challenge this week. Find out what questions you're holding in your hands and you're not just willing to say, God, why? Or how? Or when? And I'm going to tell you this like I tell you about prayers. If you genuinely give it up to God, you don't have to ask him every day.

We can trust that if we bring the question to God, that God already has provided the answer and we just need to be patient in the waiting. Are you afraid? Are you excited? Are you sad? Are you happy? Are you confused? Are you clear? Ask questions, question everything, and experience the transformation that you're meant to.

Please pray with me. Our most gracious and loving God, thank you so much for your Word. Thank you so much for the stories of your followers, of those who questioned you, those who questioned you in the moments of fear, those who questioned you in the moments of excitement.

Thank you for beckoning us to question you, for giving us that space where we don't have to know it all, where we don't have to have it all figured out, but we have the right to ask. God, I ask that you would reveal to us over these next days, where are those places in our life that we need to seek more answers, where we need to put words to our doubt and our fears, where we need to face humility and face courage. And God, we thank you for the answers to come.

We thank you for the answers that always reside within. And we thank you for Jesus Christ, the answer, the model, the teacher, the way shower, who we know is always ready to give us what we seek. And it's in that beautiful name we pray.

Amen.