Should We Question God?

When we got together on Sunday John asked, “Should we question God?”  He then got a whole gamut of answers.  Lynn said we should not question God.  Robin said God invites us to engage Him citing Isaiah 1:18, “Come, let us reason together.”  Tom said the Psalms are filled with people questioning God.  Joyce said it depended on the nature of the question.  And Eric said God knows our hearts.  I thought John asked a great question and I thought he got a great response.

The question and responses reminded me of when Eric and I used to pray together.  (This was years ago).  Eric told me when he prayed he was honest because God knew what was in his heart.  And like the song The Gambler, Eric gave me an “An ace that I could keep.”

Over and over Scripture tells us that God knows everything and there’s nowhere to hide from God.  So it is to our benefit to “come clean” and tell God what’s on our minds and hearts.  Transparency—this is the basis of how we build trust and intimacy with God.  In other words, we cannot know God unless we are honest with Him.

We often define prayer as a conversation.  Yet, we understand that if only one person is talking, it is not a conversation.  I could be wrong but in Scripture we always see people praying to God yet, we never see God praying to people.  Instead what we see after people prayed are words like, “God heard” or “God answered.”  Therefore, I’ve come to the conclusion that prayer is not a conversation, but it can be part of a conversation.

The reason why I’m saying all of this is to call our attention to Jesus.  Jesus is Immanuel, that is, “God with us.”  If we can redefine or imagine all the words that were spoken to Jesus as “prayer” to God, we can also see how God would answer us.

If people talked to me the way that they talked to Jesus, all my insecurities would surface.  I would feel angry, threatened, insulted, disrespected, and afraid (to name a few).  The way I would respond to this would not be very pretty.  Yet in Jesus, we see the beauty and majesty of God.  John says He was full of grace and truth (John 1: 17).

Going back to John’s original question, “Should we question God?”  The answer is, Jesus answers that question.  However we should brace ourselves because the way He answers will demand our highest respect and utmost devotion for Him.