If you have ever played trivia games, you have probably experienced that one beautiful moment where your opponent stumbles over what you consider to be an elementary question. They fumble and stumble for the answer as that smug smile on your face grows wider and wider, waiting for the chance to crush them with your superior knowledge. Perhaps you even indulge in a taunt or two, throw them a vague hint, or just sit in arrogant silence, all the while glorying in their ignorance, because not only does it feel good to win – it feels amazing to have proof that you are the smartest person in the room.
We live in a world where so much of life is a game. We collect our tokens, we roll the dice, and we play every free pass we get hoping that we win this round. The world is full of winners and losers, and how you define that is by how much you earn, who you know, what you have, and who knows the right answers.
Unfortunately, this is also how many of us approach this thing called faith. Those of us who identify ourselves as Christians have no doubt that we have the answer – his name is Jesus. And even more unfortunately, we have treated this like the ultimate free pass. We win. We know we win, our Bibles tell us so, and so what is the point of anymore questions? Why bother with another go around the board when anyone with any sense can plainly see that we have already won?
But you see there are still questions, valid and necessary questions that need to be answered.
Somewhere along the lines we got confused. We started dividing up this world into winners and losers. We stopped looking at other people as teammates and friends, and we began seeing them as opponents and losers. We started keeping score and feeling smug about our victory. We taunt and even treat others with scorn when they are not as smart as we think we are. And we flat out despise anyone who dares to ask another question, because we are convinced they should just accept the answer we have to offer.
And this means that we stop asking questions. We stop seeking answers and understanding, hiding behind our free pass and using Jesus as our favorite excuse to remain in ignorance.
After all, questions can become rather risky. They threaten to expose how little we do know and if our identity is wrapped up having the right answer the very fabric of who we believe we are just might come unraveled if someone asks the wrong thing. People have this unnerving tendency to ask about things we don’t like to think about like sex, heartbreak, death, poverty, and where was God when my world fell apart? And they won’t accept “Jesus” as an answer. They want more.
They want to hear how Jesus became real to you. They want to know how he showed up when your life was in shambles. They want to know what he said when you asked that difficult question in your life. They want see if you are really know what you are talking about or are you just spouting off something you read on a cheat sheet.
And if we got honest – I mean down and dirty, scary honest – that is exactly what most of us are doing. We don't ask why we think he is the right answer. We just know that someone told us that he is, and by accepting it, we hoped that we could bypass all those awful and terrifying questions that world poses to us each day.
The thing is relationships don’t work that way. You don’t get to just pull out a free pass and say I won. You can’t do with people, and you can’t do it with Jesus. He has no interest in simply being your “get out of hell free” card. He want you to know him and he wants others to know him through you. And how do you get to know someone? It’s when you have the guts to work through the questions together, when you trust someone so deeply that you can take them all the doubts and fears of this world with the assurance that you have someone at your side who will never leave. It is when you can freely ask him the hard questions about all the things no one wants to think about knowing that he will guide you to a true answer, not a cliché.
True faith grows through the questions, not through avoiding them, and as we seek the answers that strengthen our faith, we learn that questions keep us humble and in awe of our Lord. We learn humility in our being while still being able to claim victory in his. We stop seeing people as winners and losers, and learn to appreciate the questions of others as a valuable part of their journey to faith.
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