Questions

My father gave me a great gift.  Daddy always said that questions are important. “If you don’t ask,” he would say, “you have only one answer.” At other times he would say, “If I stop asking questions, I’ll stop growing, and I’ll be dead.” In many ways, my father had a very simple faith and yet he never discouraged me in asking questions. Driving home from church as a kid, I would start talking about something in the sermon or from our Sunday School lesson and ask questions.

Becky’s professor of systematic theology, Dr. Beverly Mitchell, is my partner in facilitating one of the groups of seminary interns. She says, “I serve a God who can handle the questions.” I figure if I am asking questions and honestly seeking answers then I am staying in relationship. I think God honors that. I don’t have to have all the answers sewn up into a neat package. I don’t have to understand it all. Sometimes I feel like I need certitude, especially when things are shifting around me, but some of the greatest growth comes for me when someone asks a question that shakes me, that makes me stop and think. It helps me think about what is most important.

What is most important is that I give thanks for the questions. I especially give thanks that our God is big enough, vast enough, to provide mystery and allow our imaginations to play. This God who in some awesome way is Three-in-One enters into the dialogue and helps to open me up to keep growing in loving relationship with God and others.