I have spent my life asking questions, and at times they have landed me in a great deal of trouble. When learning about reflection and refraction in 8th grade science, I struggled to grasp the concept because no one could explain to me why light bent as it did. I was told, “It is because it is. You just have to accept it.” I never accepted that answer and subsequently my grade suffered. Blind faith in the laws of physics and nature did not sit well with me.
I also learned that questioning the rules of authority was not a good idea. I was a professional back-talker – partially because I needed to have the last word, but mostly I needed to feel a sense of control. This was especially true if I felt the slightest sense of injustice. I needed to know the reasons behind the rule and the justification for the consequence. I needed to be in the know to feel safe. I needed to control what was happening to me.
There was a time when I would have died in battle over my questions. I was in relentless pursuit of breaking out of the unknown. Questions are about finding answers that lead to certainty. “I KNOW this to be true.” Maturity comes when we can ask the question and be content with a silent or unknown answer.
Immaturity cannot handle the silence. Where the questions leave us blank, we will fill the unknown space with assumptions. We will project our own reasons, our own answers. We see this with the adolescent female stereotype – she hears laughter in the school hallways and assumes it is people poking fun at her.
Questions in the midst of pain find us grasping for any sensible explanation. We ask God why this has happened to us – why God would allow such horrible things to happen to good people. Our dissatisfaction with the unknown answers leads us to quick answers. When explaining an untimely death we say that God needed them to come home. This flip answer is far from comforting to a grieving parent or young widow.
When we are wrestling with tormenting memories from childhood we blame God for being absent or blame God for making us so weak and awful. Our unanswered “whys” lead us down a path where we begin projecting our own thoughts and emotions onto God. We are angry; therefore we believe God must be angry with us. Our sense of self-worth and self-respect has shattered and we come to believe that God agrees with our self-hatred.
In some circles, questions are all together threatening. The system has built up a tenet of beliefs about God and the world. These tenets make them feel safe. The rules and boundaries are clearly defined. If you have grown up in such a system and are unable to articulate your questions then this can be devastating. I have met many people who have described extreme loneliness and isolation because their questions were seen as attacks. It saddens me to know that there are systems that shut down the questioning process. This is called Authoritarianism – “you will comply because I said so.”
When I read through Scripture, I find many places of deep wrestling and questioning between God and man (think Jacob and David; think Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane). In most cases, there were no explanations but the questions were welcomed. When we question with maturity, it is not about arguing or having to be right. Mature questioning is intimate. When we wrestle with the question we discover what is hiding underneath it – fear, grief, uncertainty, anger. When we expose these things to God and a trusted community, when we begin to wrestle with what is really bothering us, then we find healing.
Next . . . “R” as in Restoration.
I also learned that questioning the rules of authority was not a good idea. I was a professional back-talker – partially because I needed to have the last word, but mostly I needed to feel a sense of control. This was especially true if I felt the slightest sense of injustice. I needed to know the reasons behind the rule and the justification for the consequence. I needed to be in the know to feel safe. I needed to control what was happening to me.
There was a time when I would have died in battle over my questions. I was in relentless pursuit of breaking out of the unknown. Questions are about finding answers that lead to certainty. “I KNOW this to be true.” Maturity comes when we can ask the question and be content with a silent or unknown answer.
Immaturity cannot handle the silence. Where the questions leave us blank, we will fill the unknown space with assumptions. We will project our own reasons, our own answers. We see this with the adolescent female stereotype – she hears laughter in the school hallways and assumes it is people poking fun at her.
Questions in the midst of pain find us grasping for any sensible explanation. We ask God why this has happened to us – why God would allow such horrible things to happen to good people. Our dissatisfaction with the unknown answers leads us to quick answers. When explaining an untimely death we say that God needed them to come home. This flip answer is far from comforting to a grieving parent or young widow.
When we are wrestling with tormenting memories from childhood we blame God for being absent or blame God for making us so weak and awful. Our unanswered “whys” lead us down a path where we begin projecting our own thoughts and emotions onto God. We are angry; therefore we believe God must be angry with us. Our sense of self-worth and self-respect has shattered and we come to believe that God agrees with our self-hatred.
In some circles, questions are all together threatening. The system has built up a tenet of beliefs about God and the world. These tenets make them feel safe. The rules and boundaries are clearly defined. If you have grown up in such a system and are unable to articulate your questions then this can be devastating. I have met many people who have described extreme loneliness and isolation because their questions were seen as attacks. It saddens me to know that there are systems that shut down the questioning process. This is called Authoritarianism – “you will comply because I said so.”
When I read through Scripture, I find many places of deep wrestling and questioning between God and man (think Jacob and David; think Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane). In most cases, there were no explanations but the questions were welcomed. When we question with maturity, it is not about arguing or having to be right. Mature questioning is intimate. When we wrestle with the question we discover what is hiding underneath it – fear, grief, uncertainty, anger. When we expose these things to God and a trusted community, when we begin to wrestle with what is really bothering us, then we find healing.
Next . . . “R” as in Restoration.
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