Resolve To Ask Good Questions

Start with How Do We Grow? (Video download from RightNowMedia) 3 mins

Start with How Do We Grow? (Video download from RightNowMedia) 3 mins

There's an old story about a Jewish tailor named Lev Ashram who goes to a synagogue to pray. On his way out he meets a rabbi.

"Well, what have you been doing in the synagogue, Lev Ashram?" the rabbi asks.

"I was saying my prayers," said Lev.

"And did you confess your sins?" the rabbi asked.

"Yes, rabbi. I confessed my little sins."

RABBI: "Your little sins?"

LA: "Yes, I confessed that I sometimes cut my cloth on the short side, and that I cheat on a yard of wool by a couple of inches."

RABBI: "You said that to God?"

LA: "Yes, rabbi, and more. I said, `Lord, I cheat on pieces of cloth; you let little babies die. I'll make you a deal. You forgive me my little sins and I'll forgive you your great big ones.'"

Doubts, questions, and struggles are real.

Questions like why do you let tiny babies die? Why do 11 year old girls get leukemia? Why, why, why?

One of my favourite musicians Jon Foreman pens some of these questions in a song called Vice Verses.

He says:

Where is God in the city life?

Where is God in the city light?

Where is God in the earthquake?

Where is God in the genocide?

Where are you in my broken heart?

Everything seems to fall apart

Everything feels rusted over

Tell me that you're there

Jesus asked a lot of questions. He sometimes even answered questions with a question. Ten major questions that He asked within the Gospels are:

Who do you say I am? , and 20:28Do you believe? , , :24Do you want to get well? Why are you so afraid? , Why did you doubt? Do you still not see or understand? Are you also going to leave? What does Scripture say? Who touched me? Do you love me? ,

Jesus goes from one spectrum of emotion to the other in some of his questions. Some were said in disappointment or frustration, such as Why did you doubt? In reference to Peter walking on water and Do you still not see or understand? In reference to his disciples still not believing and needing more proof. While others he asked because he desired others to live their answer. Such us the do you want to get well? In reference to the man at Bethesda. Or Who touched me? In reference to the woman that had uncontrollable bleeding. This shows that Jesus asked difficult questions, and sometimes they weren’t answered right away, and more importantly He didn’t always answer questions that were asked of Him.

In the Pharisees asked Jesus a loaded question. They didn’t want the answer, they wanted to draw blood; they wanted to trap Jesus. He doesn’t answer it; at least not directly. He saw their motive and said I don’t want to play your game. More on that later.

The truth is that I wrestle with things, and I think we all do. Today I want to speak about those questions and that it is ok to question God, and in fact He doesn't get upset with us when we do.

IT'S O.K. TO QUESTION GOD ... BUT THEN WHAT?

Well frankly, don't expect an answer--at least not one that will satisfy you.

C.S. Lewis, in A Grief Observed, writes after the death of his wife to cancer:

"When you're happy, so happy that you don't have any sense of needing God, if you turn to him with praise you'll be welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, a sound of bolting and double-bolting on the inside & after that, silence. You may as well turn away.”

What kind of questions should we ask? Most of us can remember teachers telling us that there are no stupid questions. While this is correct, it is not informative. There are no stupid questions, but there are wrongly timed questions.

Such as asking a math question in an English class.

What questions should we be asking God, rather than just why?

I want to turn to to give a picture of questions, doubts and faith.

We are focusing on this psalm and how Asaph; one of Israel’s priestly singers prayed and worked through a crisis. An emotional and intellectual crisis; he is having a crisis of doubt.

Before I begin I just want to draw attention to the fact that we are reading the Bible when we read . You’re probably like, of course it’s the Bible what are you talking about? Think about this though; the Bible contains within itself resources for doubt, even the Scriptures recognize how difficult it is to believe at times.

Psalm 73 NIV

A psalm of Asaph. 1 Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. 2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. 3 For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4 They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. 5 They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills. 6 Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. 7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits. 8 They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. 9 Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth. 10 Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. 11 They say, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?” 12 This is what the wicked are like— always free of care, they go on amassing wealth. 13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence. 14 All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments. 15 If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children. 16 When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply 17 till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. 18 Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. 19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! 20 They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. 21 When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, 22 I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. 23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. 27 Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. 28 But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.

1 Surely God is good to Israel,     to those who are pure in heart.

2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;     I had nearly lost my foothold.

3 For I envied the arrogant     when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

4 They have no struggles;     their bodies are healthy and strong.[a] 5 They are free from common human burdens;     they are not plagued by human ills. 6 Therefore pride is their necklace;     they clothe themselves with violence. 7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity[b];     their evil imaginations have no limits. 8 They scoff, and speak with malice;     with arrogance they threaten oppression. 9 Their mouths lay claim to heaven,     and their tongues take possession of the earth. 10 Therefore their people turn to them     and drink up waters in abundance.[c] 11 They say, “How would God know?     Does the Most High know anything?”

12 This is what the wicked are like—     always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.

13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure     and have washed my hands in innocence. 14 All day long I have been afflicted,     and every morning brings new punishments.

15 If I had spoken out like that,     I would have betrayed your children. 16 When I tried to understand all this,     it troubled me deeply 17 till I entered the sanctuary of God;     then I understood their final destiny.

18 Surely you place them on slippery ground;     you cast them down to ruin. 19 How suddenly are they destroyed,     completely swept away by terrors! 20 They are like a dream when one awakes;     when you arise, Lord,     you will despise them as fantasies.

21 When my heart was grieved     and my spirit embittered, 22 I was senseless and ignorant;     I was a brute beast before you.

23 Yet I am always with you;     you hold me by my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel,     and afterward you will take me into glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you?     And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail,     but God is the strength of my heart     and my portion forever.

27 Those who are far from you will perish;     you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. 28 But as for me, it is good to be near God.     I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge;     I will tell of all your deeds.

Pay careful attention to verse 1. Essentially he is saying God is good all the time, and all the time God is good…but I am not sure that I believe that anymore. It is all about perspective. Even in that saying that we say in church, “God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.” We pay careful attention to those that have been around the block and say this because it carries weight. Those that haven’t we take it as naïve, and maybe at times insensitive. Just think say you are going through a difficult situation and you have someone say that common church saying to you. You may listen to the person that has been there and experienced setback. You may ask, how did you get through it? Or how can you say that in the midst of struggle? You may not listen to the brand new Christian that just found Jesus last week, says that and hasn’t had much struggle in life.

Asaph is trying to accomplish two things by saying this God is good statement. He is sharing his pain, and also trying to shake those up that take it at face value and have never experienced things that would make them question God’s goodness.

Verse 2 shows us two metaphors. 1. “my feet had almost slipped” and 2. “nearly lost my foothold.” This is a picture of this man’s faith.

Now what kind of journey does it indicate when you are slipping and almost losing a foothold? Tripping on a sidewalk? Walking an even path? No. A mountain, he is going uphill. He is saying that it takes effort and intentionality. He has to carefully plan his way, and to continue journeying and not look down. To follow God takes real effort, and Asaph says he almost slipped.

Something unexpected happened to cause him to almost fall. It is a good image of doubt, things happen that shake our worldview and how we make sense of life. That these things can cause us to fall.

Now what causes him to have questions; we don’t know. But Verse 3 through 14 show that it was very personal. Verse 3 says:

3 For I envied the arrogant     when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

The word prosperity here is the one Hebrew word almost everyone knows. The word Shalom. It means prosperous, blessings, wholeness.

Verse 13 and 14 shows us what he believes that he gets.

13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure     and have washed my hands in innocence. 14 All day long I have been afflicted,     and every morning brings new punishments.

He is saying I have done the right things. Where’s mine?

Asaph was a temple musician; in fact he was the director of music during the reign of King David and King Solomon. He wrote twelve Psalms that we have in the Old Testament and essentially he was King David’s worship leader. He was a Levite; a priest. Despite this, it’s like he is saying to God, come on really? That dude over there shoots you the bird with the way that he lives and he gets all of that? That house, that inheritance, that blessing? What do I get? Nothing! And I spend my days playing a harp in your temple so that others can come worship you. I make music for the King. Is this it? Really? I got the short end of the stick.

See as a Levite, Asaph would have had no inheritance. Levitical priests in the Old Testament could not own any land. Therefore it was easy for him to compare with current circumstances.

Now I know questioning God is tough for some. And that the questions that we have at times, we ask ‘should I really ask this?’ Some of us may have grown up in a church culture that didn’t allow doubt, and if we did doubt or have endless questions then we were told to just have more faith and stop asking such questions.

I do not presume to know a lot about suffering. In my brief life I've done very little of it in comparison to some. But the Bible has a lot to say about it. And one of the clearest things it has to say about it is this...It is ok to question God. The difficult thing is that we as a church culture often look down upon those in doubts.

We think and maybe have had others say to us, “Only if we were more holy then we wouldn’t

doubt.”

We're not used to questioning God, we're used to defending him! (It never occurs to us that God can probably take care of himself!)

We want to find reasons for all the bad stuff that happens. We want to intellectualize everything, and the reality is that doubt is not just our minds.

We are complex beings, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical beings.

In the 21 first century we think of doubt only as a mind thing, but it is much more than that. We think of this because we live in the age of information, and because of that often times we tie doubt to new ideas and thinking. Asaph is not having a crisis because simply a new idea, but also because of his circumstances. That is why when doubt arises we must not just ask what new idea is causing trouble and confusion, but what is my life like right now?

He has had a life experience that is causing his heart to be in conflict with what his mind knows. He knows that God is good, but he doesn’t feel it right now.

This Psalm can become your prayer and my prayer because we have no idea what is causing his doubt. If we did, we may not connect with it as well. What we do know is that he is not having a fun time. Any of us that have had moments of doubt can read this and see ourselves in it, but it doesn’t end here.

Just because this crisis of doubt is unpleasant doesn’t mean it is a bad experience. What do I mean by that? Well simply, we wouldn’t have if he didn’t have this experience. Think about that, without the struggle of Asaph we would not have this Psalm that we can connect with and make into a prayer of our own.

How do we respond to doubt? We blindly just jump and pretend it isn’t there? No don’t do that; seriously, or you will compound the problems in your life and one day you will blow up and dare I say most likely forsake your faith.

The fact is that faith does not come at the expense of reason.

Paul says we walk by faith, not by the seeming appearance of things. He does not say we walk by faith blindly forgetting our minds. Faith is not about forgetting our intellects.

Faith in Jesus does require one leap. You and I can’t see and touch, and did not live when Jesus lived. We have to trust the gospels, but it isn’t a blind leap. Very similar to the way that we should listen to the counsel of the older Christian that says ‘God is good all the time.’ We simply have to believe the testimony of someone else. It is a leap but it is an informed leap.

Doubts are moment of growth.

Do any of you remember growing pains?

You know, Alan Thicke, Kirk Cameron, Joanna Kerns, the Seaver Family?

No, I do not mean the 90’s sitcom. I mean when you were a child and you hit the lovely stage of puberty and began to grow. No? Just me? When I was a kid I used to be pretty short, I am still not freakishly tall, but it is an improvement from where I was. I remember when I went through a growth spurt I grew almost a foot in a year. It hurt, there were moments when my bones ached, literally. See when a child grows it hurts. When we grow it hurts. Growth often equals pain. This is what Asaph’s story shows us, that he is growing.

If we never grow what does it make us? A child. Just as the Apostle Paul said:

1 Corinthians 13:11–13 NIV

11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

We must move past our doubts, and learn to live within it. To just give everything up because we have questions is well first off rash, second immature, and childish. Just because you don’t like something that God did doesn’t mean we just say ‘that’s it I am done.’ It’s like the little kid in the grocery store that doesn’t want to move. He’s fed up with something and because of that he cements his feet to the floor and yells if mom or dad even attempt to pull him from that spot. It’s foolish, we have to keep moving.

Let us heed the words of Eric Clapton.

“Standing at the crossroads, trying to read the signs. To tell me which way I should to find the answer.”

Saint Augustine actually spoke about this concept much before Eric Clapton penned the words to Let It Grow. Augustine’s point “is that when you are on a journey it is a mistake to remain sitting at the crossroads.” Faith is a journey, and it is foolish to sit at the crossroads and expect the world to appear. We must continue on our journey if we wish to reach the destination we seek.

This is what Asaph does. He probes his motives of doubt. Verse 3 actually shows us that the root of his doubt is a character issue.

3 For I envied the arrogant     when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

He’s jealous. This jealousy is motivating this doubt within his life. This isn’t an intellectual crisis of faith. One of the major reasons is that he is jealous.

We must ask whether or not our doubt is just a smokescreen. Is our doubt truly rooted in skepticism or is it rooted in laziness to truly commit to God? I know a lot of people that don’t commit to God because they say they have questions and doubts. Now some do, but for some the reality is that what lies in them is not doubt but a decision to want to do whatever they want. They want to just have fun with their friends and live the way they want. They masquerade it in doubt, but the reality is that they just don’t want to commit to Jesus because He will take their fun away or people will make fun of them.

For Asaph he attempted to masquerade his jealousy by doubt.

It comes back to Jesus’ unanswered question, what is the motive behind your doubt?

How should we respond to doubt?

Deconstruct our doubt

We need to be skeptics of our skepticism.

In my job as a chaplain I have had to learn how to do this. I hear a lot of outlandish stories that are often hard to believe. Some of them are true, and that is what blows my mind, but some over time have shown that they were just a made up story. Despite this within each story I have to remain neutral and take it at face value. I am very skeptical of them at times, but I have to teach myself to be skeptical of my skepticism because if I don’t then if the story is true then I lose any ground that I may have gained with counselling this person.

Deconstructing our doubts is often like this. We have to just take our questions and frustrations at face value. We have to remain neutral to them, and test them. In essence, the Bible speaks about God’s goodness and if we believe the Bible then we must be skeptical of skepticism when it seemingly contradicts who God says He is. Does this mean that we brush it off and become insensitive towards those who doubt? NO!

The turning point in this Psalm is verse 15-17, which says:

15 If I had spoken out like that,     I would have betrayed your children. 16 When I tried to understand all this,     it troubled me deeply 17 till I entered the sanctuary of God;     then I understood their final destiny.

He is saying that his faith would and does impact others, and that is when he realized he needs others. He went to the temple, he found community.

Did you know that your pursuit of God can have an effect on others?

How should we respond to doubt?

Immerse ourselves in community

He immersed himself in a faith community. He realized that you won’t think your way out of doubt. You need to immerse yourself in a community of faith, worship and learning.

He went to the temple (kind of like church; but not really) it was also the place where he worked. He saw people of all shapes, sizes, colours come into this place where God was. He most likely saw the rich, poor, priest, and prostitute. It was there that he realized that people from all walks of life and mistakes can come before the God of heaven. That in surrounding yourself with other people of faith you receive encouragement and a reminder of who God is.

If the questions are of an intellectual nature then go seek out other intellectuals. You won’t be the only one with these questions. Asaph is asking questions that we still ask today; 3,000 years later.

Surround yourself with others that have had the same experience that you are currently in, and that have come through it to the other side. That can still say God is good all the time, and have the scars to prove their words have weight.

How should we respond to doubt?

Look With Perspective

My one dog did not receive the training that he should have when he was a puppy. We got him as a rescue when he was around a year old. He was a stray that came from Detroit, and had spent most of his life without his mom in a shelter. As a result he can be moody, bark and nip for attention; all simply because he wants to play or cuddle. He didn’t learn when he was little that that is not how you ask for attention. He was not taught early the things that would take him further and more easily through his life. He was not given the basic skills to succeed early on. We are now doing this, and it is a struggle at times; but it is not impossible. It takes patience.

Life can be like this for us; to continue to go the way that we are accustomed to. To not back up and ask ourselves, is there a better way that I look at this? Is there a better way to handle this? Am I possibly missing something?

Asaph realized the hope and future he had in God, and that the earthly pleasures of the people he was jealous of did not have that same future.

22 I was senseless and ignorant;     I was a brute beast before you.

23 Yet I am always with you;     you hold me by my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel,     and afterward you will take me into glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you?     And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail,     but God is the strength of my heart     and my portion forever.

27 Those who are far from you will perish;     you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. 28 But as for me, it is good to be near God.     I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge;     I will tell of all your deeds.

Asaph repents here, admits that God is bigger than his situation, rejoices and enters into worship.

Think of what is to come, not just your current struggle, frustration or question. Bring those to God, He can handle them and wants to hear from you, but learn how to look beyond it. Just as when you are raising a child you teach them things and have them do things that seem so unimportant at the time, but in reality they are of great importance for the future.

Conclusion:

Someday something terrible is going to happen to you. Terrible things happen to everybody sooner or later. You will not be exempt. You are going to question God. That's o.k. He doesn't mind. But when all the questions have fallen from your lips, what then?

I want to challenge you to do these three simple things:

1. Deconstruct Your Doubt

2. Immerse Yourself In Community

3. Look With Perspective

You may just find that by doing these things that God will bring a resolve to your questions, and that some balm may be applied to your wound.