Take Your Questions to God

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.

Now, if that’s true, and I believe it is, why aren’t more of us doing it? Have you ever thought about that? Why, as followers of Jesus, do we make so many decisions on our own? Why do we run ahead? Why do we often take matters into our own hands? Why don’t we ask God about everything? Well, many of us don’t inquire of the Lord because we assume…

We already know the answer

“I thought of it immediately,” you might say. “I know exactly what to do. This must be God.” Well, it might be God. He might, I suppose, answer questions you’ve never asked, but it’s more likely what you’ve come up with is what you’ve done before, what others have done or what you, in your heart, want to do. If you’re faced with a difficult situation and you’re convinced you already know the answer, you’re simply not giving God a chance. This is the source of so many unfortunate emails or texts. Upset over some slight, perceived or otherwise, we jump to conclusions, pull out our phones and punch out an ill-conceived, emotionally charged, angrily worded memo and send it to everyone in the family, everyone in our small group, everyone in the church, everyone in the company, everyone in Washington, D.C., instead of taking a breath and asking God, “What would you have me do in this situation? How should I respond? What response would best honor and glorify you?” Have you ever sent a text or an email you wish you could have back? We don’t ask God what to do because we think we already know the answer. And many of us don’t inquire of the Lord because it’s easier to…

Read a book or watch a video

This is a common reason why Western Christians, in particular, don’t bother to ask God questions. We’re surrounded by experts, geniuses, and intellectuals who're incredibly smart if not very wise. We have the internet, for heaven’s sake, a world of information at our finger tips, and some of it is true. Armed with this embarrassment of easily accessible content, we’re more likely to watch a documentary, listen to a podcast, ask Grok or ChatGPT for answers, or watch a TED talk. Though these things are sometimes helpful they’re not necessarily the counsel of God, even when they come from self-identified Christians. I mean, just because something worked for some other believer in a similar circumstance doesn’t mean it’s somehow blessed or anointed by God to work in your situation. As pastor and author Peter Lord wrote,

“When God has blessed others by using certain methods, we sometimes presume that we should use those same methods. We don’t realize that God blessed that way for others because that’s the way He ordered them to do things. Nowhere is this more common than in church programs. One church prays and receives an answer…Then another church, seeing this blessing, copies the program — because they believe God is blessing the program itself. They fail to realize that what He is really blessing is obedience. And they never stop to ask Him, ‘Father, what do you want us to do?’” ~ Peter Lord

What do you want me to do? One size, one solution, does not fit all. Every situation is unique. We need to inquire of the Lord. Here’s a third thing. Many of us don’t inquire of the Lord because…

We have strong opinions

…on the subject and we don’t want him to contradict us. We want to do what we want to do, what seems right to us. We want others to do what we want them to do. We have strong opinions on what should be done. We want a particular outcome or we tell ourselves that God gave us a brain and he expects us to use it. He gave us the ability to reason and we just need to figure everything out on our own. Do you know that one? “Just use your common sense. You can’t be bothering God with every single decision you have to make” — as if God is bothered by our requests or has a limited bandwidth or lacks the patience to listen to us or has something far better to do or is wholly disinterested in our lives. I love what author Jan Johnson wrote. She said,

“When we live in interactive relationship with God, we naturally ask God questions about all kinds of things. Surrender is the atmosphere of the prayer, and questions are an outward sign of surrender. Without the back-and-forth of asking God for direction, we follow the default method of doing things, which is to size things up from our limited perspectives and make every decision on our own. Life becomes much more interesting when we invite God into situations, great and small. We gladly live our lives in the shape of a question mark.” ~ Jan Johnson

Are you living your life in the shape of a question mark? Do you have an interactive relationship with God? Or are you simply sizing things up based on your limited perspective and making every decision on your own? Do you want to live a more interesting life? Invite God into every situation. When you do that, you’ll discover a whole host of…

Questions you can ask

There are foundational questions like, “What about my character needs to change?” And, “How can I learn to keep company with you?” And there are questions that rise from the challenges of life like, ““What do I need to know about this situation?” And, “Why does this person always misunderstand me?” Other times, the questions are more general, but still important like, “What am I missing? What should I do now?” As you think about times of rest, you might ask, “What do you want me to do with my weekend or my day off? How would you have me serve my spouse or my family? What does my body need right now?”

Sometimes we ask questions out of our confusion. Both Mary and Nicodemus asked the important question: “How can this be?” That’s a core question when you don’t understand what’s happening or what God might be asking you to do. It’s a core question when you’re confronted by suffering or abuse or poverty. “How can this be?” God is love and he is not the author of this pain. In fact, God himself weeps over people in their distress and he invites us, in Romans 12:15, to mourn with those who mourn. That helps, but you still might ask, “How can these things be?” Take your questions to God! When we take our questions to God we live more intentionally. When you’re asking things like, “How can I be compassionate in this situation?” you’re living more intentionally.

And there’s nothing wrong with waiting for answers. When we wait for answers, something happens inside us. For many of our most ardent and difficult questions, we might come to a place where we no longer need an answer because we’ve come to know the Answerer! Have you come to know the Answerer? Are you willing to take your questions to God, to live a life of asking God questions?