Asking God Questions

I want to encourage you to ask God lots and lots of questions, to engage in the practice of inquiry. As author, Jan Johnson, wrote,

“Any conversation in which two people are seeking each other out will include questions.”

For example, you might hear a message on loving your neighbor. It’s biblical, it’s seems fairly straightforward, but you have a difficult neighbor. You’d like to show them love, but you’d also like to maintain healthy boundaries. What do you do? You should ask God, “How can I love this person without getting in over my head? How can I love them in a sensible way?” Or, you might be wondering about the past (What happened there?) or about the future (What’s going to happen?) or about a complicated life situation. Again, you should ask God about it. Why? Because God knows and we’re constantly discovering that we don’t know what we don’t know. Think about it for a moment. Instead of prayer always being about asking God for what we think is best, what do you think would happen if you asked him what he thinks is best in a given situation? It seems like a no-brainer. “God, I’m concerned about _______. What do you think I should do? What would be best here? How should I pray?” I think we need more of this.

A Tale of Two Kings

Have you ever thought about what happens when you don’t inquire after the Lord, when you don’t seek his counsel in a given situation or ask him questions? I mean, God is infinitely creative. He sees things in situations that you and I will never see. When we keep our own counsel, rely on our own devices, and lean on our own ability to solve problems and make decisions, whatever it is, no matter how mundane or obvious, when we don’t involve God we miss out on the infinite possibilities and surprising solutions inherent in God’s endless creativity.

Probably the best way to illustrate this is by comparing a story from the life of Saul with a similar situation in the life of David. Both kings of Israel were threatened by the Philistine army. Saul, a sensible military man, didn’t ask God questions while David sought God’s counsel and followed it. This is, if you will, a tale of two kings. The first story is recorded in 1 Samuel, chapter 13. Verse 5 says,

The Philistines assembled to fight Israel, with three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the sea shore.

Some later manuscripts actually put the number closer to thirty thousand chariots. Either way, it was an overwhelming force and the Israelites were rightfully terrified. Many of them hid in caves or thickets, others fled to the mountains or tried to conceal themselves in holes and cisterns. Even with all these defections, verse 7 says,

Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear.

Saul stayed, which is good, but he felt compelled to do nothing for seven days. Why? Because the prophet, Samuel, told him to wait until he could come and offer a sacrifice to God on their behalf. But Samuel didn’t come, he was delayed, and while they waited, their ranks grew thinner still, making the situation even more desperate. Ultimately, King Saul gave way to the pressure that arises in desperate circumstances, and did what many of us often do. He decided to take matters into his own hands and offer the burnt offering himself.

From our vantage point, this is a clear case of disobedience. To adequately understand why this was such a big deal, you need to know that ancient Israel was meant to be a theocracy. It wasn’t a republic or a democracy. They didn’t have petition drives in which moral issues would be placed on the November ballot. It wasn’t a libertarian society in which everyone essentially got to do whatever he or she pleased. Ancient Israel was meant to be a theocracy. The Lord God, who revealed himself by the name “Yahweh”, was meant to be the leader of Israel. God's word, then, was the law of the land. Everyone including, the earthly king, was subject to the word of the Lord. This made Israel unique among the nations. In other nations of that day, the kings were considered divine and their word was law. But Israel never deified their kings. The king was meant to be a servant of God who was required to submit himself in obedience to the word of God. How did ancient Israel know what God commanded? God sent specially appointed prophets to announce his word.

This brings up another major difference between ancient Israel and America today. In ancient Israel, to reject the prophets' revelation was to reject God himself. The prophets' words were to be strictly obeyed. And because the prophets in ancient Israel had so much authority, they carried a heavy responsibility. If a prophet misled the people or spoke his own mind and not out of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he was stoned. This is obviously not the case today.

In the New Testament era, apostles were appointed by Jesus to take the place of the Old Testament prophets. To reject the word of the apostles, the words of Peter, Paul, John and the rest, was to reject the Word of God. Nevertheless, in the New Testament era, the words of the prophets are not to be strictly obeyed. They’re to be tested, weighed and prayed over. If someone says, “I have a prophetic word for you. God wants you to marry me or God wants you to give me a sum of money.” You should say, “Thanks for sharing. I need to weigh that, test it and pray over it to determine whether or not it’s God.” In fact, the best way to understand the gift of prophecy today is that the prophetic is simply an invitation to pray.

So, Saul disobeys a clear command from God. He doesn’t wait for the prophet Samuel to offer the sacrifices. He offers them himself. He blurs the line between God's authority and his own authority. He usurps the role that exclusively belongs to God's prophets and priests. That’s clearly what happened. But put yourself in Saul’s shoes for a moment. From his vantage point, he was simply doing the sensible thing.

This is how many of us live our lives. When we’re under pressure, afraid, we often run ahead, take matters into our own hands, and try to “fix” a problem without consulting God. We may wonder if God might have some wisdom for us, but wondering is often as far as it goes. We feel rushed into making a decision so we make it, as best we can, hoping we’re doing what God would want us to do. If Saul had simply waited for Samuel, as difficult as it might have been, if Saul had waited for Samuel, he might have given him some much-needed wisdom. But it didn’t happen. Instead, Saul kept his own counsel and did what he thought was right and verse 10 says,

Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him. “What have you done?” asked Samuel.

What have you done? It’s the first thing out of Samuel’s mouth. He knew! So Saul starts backpedaling, making excuses, trying to explain why he did what he did. He replies,

“When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mikmash, I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.” ~ 1 Samuel 13:11b-12

In other words, I didn’t have a choice! Because of his disobedience and other offenses, Samuel would later prophesy that the kingdom of Israel would be ripped from Saul’s hands and it was.

Now, I know what some of you might be thinking because I’ve thought it, too. If you’re a problem-solver, if you’re used to evaluating difficult situations and making hard decisions, this story can be really annoying! “Where was Samuel anyway? Why the delay? Why would God put Saul in such a terrible position? I mean, what was the poor man supposed to do, just stand there and get slaughtered? What did God expect? Saul may have run ahead, but certainly, he meant well. He wanted God’s favor. He had good intentions.” We have these thoughts because we wonder what we might have done in the same situation and, in the process, we find ourselves in the awkward position of sympathizing or identifying with Saul.

We often think we can figure things out on our own. As a result, many of us don’t “trouble” God with our problems. If you often have strong opinions about what or how things should be done, you might not be open to an out-of-the-box God solution, so you don’t ask! You don’t ask because you might not like the answer. And if you don’t ask God, if you don’t inquire of God, seeking his wisdom, God won’t force his wisdom on you. He won’t give unsolicited or unwanted advice. Another way we often operate is we gravitate toward one-size-fits-all solutions. We find something that worked for someone else and we simply repeat it. The solution, then, becomes a formula where every similar dilemma has the same answer. For example, “I’m having problems in my marriage. Other people have had similar problems. I’ll just ask them what to do or I’ll go to the same workshop or read the same book…instead of asking God about it.” The situation may be similar but every solution is unique. God has specific wisdom for you, if you’ll simply pause, ask him and wait for the answer.

King David faced the same Philistine army years later. Only he inquired of the LORD. He asked God,

“Shall I go and attack the Philistines? Will you deliver them into my hands?” ~ 2 Samuel 5:19

Any other seasoned, military leader might have thought that Israel should attack. But David knew that God’s idea of how things should be done is not always obvious and that God’s way is far more clever than any of us can imagine. Even when the circumstances may be the same as many times before — this is not your first rodeo — even if it seems all too familiar, God may have a different idea, a better idea, a completely different solution this time around. We need to ask God for guidance each and every time, even if we think we know what he’ll say or what to do.

This time, God answered David with a yes but added some very specific instructions. In the companion text in 1 Chronicles 14, he said,

“Do not go directly at them, but circle around them and attack them in front of the poplar trees. 15 As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the poplar trees, move out to battle, because that will mean God has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army.”

Do you see what he’s saying here? He not only tells David what to do, God himself is willing to lead the army, to add the armies of heaven to David’s earthly army, giving them the “go” signal in the rustling of trees. I’ll bet David never saw that solution coming, not in his wildest dreams! When we run ahead, take matters into our own hands and keep our own counsel, we are, in every sense of the world, on our own. But if we take the time to inquire of the Lord, he’ll not only answer us, he’ll go before us, lead us and we’ll know how to follow…if we simply do what David did and ask God a couple of simple questions. Go ahead, try it. Ask God for instructions about something that seems to have a simple, “no-brainer” answer and be open to God’s creative response. See what he has to say. He might surprise you.