Questions
Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said, “Teacher, I want to see.” Jesus said, “Go, your faith has healed you.” At once he was able to see, and he began to follow Jesus on the way. (Mark 10:51-52)
This week I started two new books. One is an audio book for my work commute. In that book, the author spent some time reflecting on the questions that Jesus’ asks. She reminds us that Jesus had a way of cutting to the heart of the matter with a simple and direct question. In the passage above, Jesus asks the blind beggar Bartimaeus, “what do you want me to do for you?” To two of John the Baptist’s disciples he asks, “What are you looking for? To Jesus’ disciples fretting over having enough to feed the gathered crowd he asks, “How much bread do you have?” The author concludes, between the four gospels alone, Jesus provides ample questions to help us navigate growth in our “yearning for God.”
The second book is all about the art of asking better questions. Here this author also uses Jesus as a prime example of excellent question asking. The author’s conviction is that we all “need to ask more questions—and better questions.” He encourages his readers to realize that asking good questions “encourages wonder, or what we might call holy curiosity.” They move us from doubt to possibility, from cynicism to creativity.
Both authors have led me to reflect on how many times I don’t ask the questions that are bubbling under the surface. This is especially true when thinking about asking God questions. I guess I somehow assume that God knows my thoughts, he knows my ponderings, he knows my fears, why would I need to ask God questions. But I realize that at this moment in my life, this assumption, that God already knows, has allowed some doubts to creep into my thinking. I’ve doubted that God really cares about my questions.
If I am totally honest, all that is going on in the world, has me asking lots of questions. Yet I realize that I’m not always good at carrying those questions to God. Instead, I tend to carry them in my heart and mind, and depending on the day those questions can begin to feel like a heavy burden.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to take Jesus’ question to Bartimaeus and reframe it, so that Jesus is asking us that same question. For example, me imagining Jesus saying, “Shawn, what do you want me to do for you?” I want to learn to be quick to compose an answer to such a question, but too often I think my answer defaults to, “Lord, I’m good, my questions and my burden is nothing compared to all that’s going on, I don’t need anything.”
Today, I hear God quietly whispering, “Shawn, I care about your questions, I want you to share them with me.”
I don’t know what questions you might be asking today. But I believe God is saying the same thing to you, “Beloved, I care about your questions, I invite you to share them with me.”
I invite you to pray with me.
Lord, thank you for being a God who welcomes our questions.
Whether immense or small, you care about them all.
Bartimaeus simply asked, and you healed.
Sometimes, we ask, simply wanting to be heard.
Like children we may ask why, but you point us back to you.
Thank you for listening to our “whys” and sitting with us in them.
Lord, perhaps we don’t ask because we think we already know an answer.
Help us instead to ask and then listen for your answer.
We love you, and are thankful for your love. Amen.
-Pastor Shawn