Ask Anything

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.--Isaiah 11:6

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."--Matthew 18:3

One of my third-graders asked me the other day, "How many people are in the world?" I told him, "Billions." Later he came back and asked, "Is infinity, um, is it, like, a real number?" Like a good language arts tutor, I told him to go ask his math teacher.

But he got me to thinking about more than numbers and world population. Like most children, he wasn't afraid to ask difficult questions.

When you work with kids, you get asked all kinds of crazy things, from "Where would we be if God didn't create the earth?" to "Are you from Mexico?" to "Are we going to recess today? Are we? Are we? ARE WE??" (These are all real-life examples.) Kids are full of questions, to the annoyance of many adults.

But Jesus received little children on His knees--and that means He accepted them--cowlicked hair, pigeon toes, questions, and all.

I think that, by the time we're adults, the world has taught us to avoid difficult questions. We've picked up the idea--through experience or simply by listening to other people who have been disappointed--that God doesn't care enough about us to answer our questions. Some believe God doesn't exist at all. The overwhelming majority of humans, however, believe that a god (or gods) do exist, but that we are too insignificant to approach him/them with questions. In "Christian" American culture, if people really think about God at all, they conclude that He doesn't want to share His knowledge, His plans, or Himself with us. They say, "Oh, it's just God's will," in the most self-deprecating of ways, then secretly burn with resentment toward Him for imposing a "no talking" rule in class. They take it for granted that He is some mysterious being floating in space, doing whatever He wants in ways that make no sense, and hitting us in the head with lightning if we ask Him about it. Some of this has made its way into doctrine; we call it the "faith like a child" answer for everything, which, to be frank, is simply an excuse to ignore their children's hard questions--and their own hard questions.

The Bible does say we ought to have faith like a child. But "faith like a child" may not be what we think.

I can say that as a teacher, I am not annoyed when my little students ask questions, but rather delighted. It gives me an opportunity to teach them something new--something that will probably stick, since they were the ones who asked about it in the first place. I eagerly get out my phone or laptop to search for answers. Just yesterday, I tapped Wikipedia for information about Willie and Tad Lincoln. (Don't judge me...Wikipedia is acceptable for third grade!) I almost can't contain my excitement when they are interested enough in something to ask me about it.

God doesn't need a smartphone or a laptop--He's the creator of everything, He has been around since before time existed (He created it, in fact), and He has all the answers. How much more delighted is He when His children ask Him questions?

Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks reveives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:7-11).

Like any good parent, I think He would rather we ask Him our questions than run around the world, seeking answers from people who have just as much knowledge as we do. People's opinions are limited by their own human experience, and everybody has one. Just do a Google search if you don't believe me. But God knows WAY more than Wikipedia or About.com. Not only did He create the entire universe, He also knows even deeper things than that: why you were created, how He formed you, where you have been, where you are going. He knows things that nobody else knows about you, even yourself.

Another thing about kids is that, when you don't answer their question immediately, they don't give up. They keep asking. Incessantly. Many times annoyingly. And when one kid in the class starts asking, everyone else starts asking too! (Especially if the question involves going to the bathroom or sharpening your pencil.) There is truth in this, though. If you don't get the answer right away...keep asking. God loves it when we seek Him. Believe it or not (and I am sensitive to the fact that, for many, this is hard to believe), His object is always, always, always to be known by us, just as we are known by Him (Hosea 6:3).

I do believe that there are some things we are not meant to know right now, since many of God's thoughts would explode our brains. (Ask any Old Testament prophet--or any believer in modern-day who's had the smallest revelation from Him, for that matter.) It is true that we don't have the capacity to see the whole picture and understand everything--even science will tell you that. And I do believe that we are not to reject God just because we don't like the answers He gives us. However, I do think that He wants us to ask questions. We don't need to be disrespectful about it, but like children, we can approach Him with childlike simplicity, unafraid to ask the biggest, hardest question we can think of. (I've heard some whoppers in my day.)

And that gets me to my last point: children ask questions with full assurance that they will be satisfied with an answer. Even if the adult they ask doesn't know the answer, children still feel sure that there is an answer...or they wouldn't ask in the first place.

I think many of us stop asking questions because we are afraid that there isn't an answer; that, somewhere out there, our idea of infinity is just a floating void in the blackness. So we stop asking.

It is highly unlikely that the little boy Jesus picked up as an example for His disciples was sitting angelically at the Teacher's feet, criss-cross-applesauce, with his lips zipped. I like to imagine him as the loudest of the bunch, the child singing worship songs painfully off-key, failing to use his "inside voice," and chasing people with spiders--and he was probably the one asking all the questions that stumped the adults. Silence is useful in the classroom (ever wonder why "the quiet game" was invented?), and there are times to be silent before the Lord. But children know the value of opening their mouths to ask a good question.

I want to encourage all of you who feel hopeless because people are telling you that life happens randomly, that you have to make it on your own, that you have to wake up every day with your fatigues on and your gun in your hands because the world is out to get you. I want to encourage all of you who expect failure, who expect disappointment, who are stressed out because you believe your life depends on your own skills and abilities. There is a man who made it His mission to preach the truth to the people of the world (billions of them, in fact): that God is seeking those who seek Him (Psalm 14:2). They called Him "Teacher" because He used parables, actions, prayers, and so many other modes of communication to reveal the heart of a Father toward His children. This man gave up His life in the cruellest and most violent of ways just to prove the love He was preaching. He is not far from any of us (Acts 17:26-29).

Some teacher probably got frustrated with you and told you you asked stupid questions; some adult in your childhood shut you up by ignoring you. But I can assure you that the Father isn't like those people.

"Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear," He says (Isaiah 65:24).

There are no silly questions with God. He wants every "who, what, when, where, how, why" you can throw at Him, even things you're afraid to ask other people. Newsflash: He's not afraid of your questions. He knows just how much infinity is. And, if you let Him, He will show you that even the word "infinity" fails to quantify His love for you.