We all have questions we’d like to ask God such as:  “Why aren’t all people healed when you pray for them?” and “Why is there unnecessary suffering among those who claim the name of God?”  What about dinosaurs, cavemen, and the estimated (5 million years) carbon dating age of the earth? Sometimes it seems God is hiding stuff from us, leaving us with unanswered questions.  We often get frustrated when we have more questions than answers. That’s okay as long as we don’t let our questions turn into doubts.

Doubt is dangerous. Somewhere between “having questions” and “doubt”, our thinking turns to, “Well if God doesn’t answer this, I’m not going to follow Him. Maybe He doesn’t even exist.“ That’s foolish. It turns a question that could’ve been answered into a doubt that destroys.

Life is like a Polaroid picture, slowly developing along the way. You won’t have all the answers or see everything clearly in the beginning but faith will help you to keep following God until the answers come to the surface and are clarified.  Our questions may sit inside us for a while, unanswered, but God is faithful and will answer every question in His time. The answers may have to wait until we’re mature enough to steward them well but one thing to remember is that God delights in our discovery…

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.” (Matt. 13:16)

Scientists say that most human beings only use 4% of their brain. If that’s all we’re working with, we need to be really careful about deciding that the Creator of the universe doesn’t exist. It’s pretty arrogant to say we aren’t going to follow Him because He won’t tell us why such-and-such happened. Are we are going to say that God is wrong and we are right because we don’t understand? 

As odd as that may seem, we do it all the time.  Instead, we have to understand that we have a lot to learn and that we need a source other than ourselves for figuring these things out. So what should we do?

Well, whenever I have a question, I put it in a little basket in my brain and say, “Lord, when You have time, could You help me understand this?” Then I just keep walking with the Lord. It’s alright because I know that somewhere down the line, when He deems the time appropriate, He’ll give me the answer as long as I keep moving forward with Him in faith.

So how do we keep going? Well, the first thing you need to do is…

1.    ESTABLISH YOUR STARTING POINT.

If you are going to walk in faith when there are more questions than answers, it is important that you have a starting point. If you don’t have a starting point, you become gullible and not teachable. If you don’t know there is a right and a wrong, then you’ll take whatever sounds good and think it is fine. In order to walk in faith, you need to be able to spot a lie or a deception. For Christians, we have the Bible to help us distinguish right from wrong and we have God as our starting point.

There are lots of religions in the world besides Christianity: Buddhism, Shintoism, Muslim but perhaps the most dangerous one of all is atheism, the belief that there is no God.  Atheists believe there is no God and that the universe, our galaxy, the earth, and even humankind were created all by chance. They believe that life and our vast universe are the result of random cosmic collisions but if you really consider the mass of our solar system – millions of tons of matter flying through space – and its precision (we can set our clocks based on the rotation of the earth), there’s not reasonable way that the world we live in was created by chance! If everything we know today was the result of random chance, there’d be cosmic collisions happening all the time. The likelihood that this world is a result of chance is about the same as you taking a bunch of gravel, dumping it into a paper bag, shaking it for a thousand years, and then dumping it out to find a Rolex watch that keeps perfect time. If you think about it, it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian.

In fact, the book of James tells us that even the demons believe in God. They rejected Him but even the devil knows that God exists. There is not one single demon in the universe that is an atheist.

So it is extremely important that we are grounded in God and that He is our starting point. The Creator, God, put everything in precise motion. All things were perfectly made by the Lord.  The Bible even says in Psalm 33, “by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made.” Hebrews 1:3 says, “He upholds all things by the word of His power.”

Some people ask why Christians say the earth is only about 4,000 years old when scientists say it is millions of years old. We have a tendency to measure God with the same measuring tape that we measure one another with. God is in a whole different stratosphere. The Bible says, “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. He is clothed with light.” What takes us a year to build, may take God just a nanosecond. He is traveling at the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second. In the amount of time it takes us to put on a sock, He can go across the U.S. 66 times!

Think of it like this:  in the 4,000 years that the earth’s been around, God did 500 million years’ worth of creation. Some people would say this is impossible and they’d be right if human limitations pertained to God…but they don’t, so He can. God works on a whole different level than we do and we can’t even comprehend what He is capable of. We have to understand that in the end, God is still going to be true, and we will still be learning. When the dust settles and the smoke clears, you’ll see Jesus standing there. In the end, we will be face to face with our Lord.

“‘Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or is merely my own.’” (John 7:17 NLT)

Paul the Apostle, probably one of the greatest minds of all time, says Jesus’ historical assignment was to come into the world and save sinners.

“It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” (1^st Tim. 1:15)

“Though everyone else in the world is a liar, God is true.” (Rom. 3:4 NLT)

People wonder, “Why isn’t there anything in the Bible about dinosaurs or cavemen?” The answer is: There is a purpose for the Bible, and the purpose is to bring us to salvation. If the Bible were about absolutely everything, it would have to be miles thick (and we wouldn’t be able to understand it anyway with our 4% brainpower)! God has simplified all that He has done to a plan of salvation, in order that we might know one thing:

“Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” (John 20:30-31)

The Bible was written so that we would have salvation. The Lord has boiled it all down to one thing for us. He knows our minds so He is making it pretty simple for us: will we choose life, or death?

“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25)

I thank God for all the researchers and scientists in the world but they are not the One who gives me life everlasting. When we get to heaven, He is going to round us all up and put us in a divine movie theatre to show us how He created it all. We will see all of that. The Bible was written was so that we could get to that theatre!

Even with your starting point as God, you may still find that you want God to reveal more to you.  What do you do then?

2.    OBEY WHAT’S ALREADY REVEALED.

To know more about forgiveness, grace and relationships, obey what He has already revealed. This is a very important point:  if you don’t obey what He has already revealed to you, why should He reveal anything else? Start with what He has already shown you, obey that and apply it to your life. When He sees that you are able to steward the knowledge that He has already given to you, then He will add more and reveal more to you. He’ll be delighted to open up the windows of heaven and show you more if you are faithful and accountable to Him. He is watching to see what we do with His Word.  So where do we start?

3.    PURSUE THE LORD, AND HE WILL ANSWER!

“‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart’” (Jer. 29:13).

You’ve got to go after Him. Go ahead and pursue not the answers, but Him – the God of all answers – and then you will receive answers. Pursue not just knowledge, but the God of all knowledge. Pursue not just wisdom, but the God of wisdom. The answers are all found in a relationship with Christ. Pursue Him.

Pursuing Him requires us to be on our knees and struggling sometimes. That’s good because praying and suffering has a tendency to burn away pride and arrogance. Maturity takes place. Perseverance, consistency and depth come into play. Humility comes in as we get rid of our pride. The Lord answers when He knows we can handle it and steward that knowledge correctly.

All this requires consistency on our part. There’s a story in Luke 11 about this.

“I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Luke 11:8-9)

Abraham had to learn how to be persistant, as the Lord kept certain answers from him. In Genesis 18:17, it says, “The LORD said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?’” Abraham was going to be a great man, a father of many nations, but God had to hide that from him because Abraham would not understand and it would’ve messed up his future.

The greatest faith is not a faith that has all the answers. The greatest faith is a faith that is able to hold unanswered questions and still follow God.

Things happen—people die—and our souls bleed because we’re human. We want to know why but if God told us the answer, it wouldn’t make a difference. It would not heal us up just like that. God knows what every single one of us needs. He knows if I we need healing for our ragged souls or broken emotions, and that’s why the Lord says, “Come to Me, you who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest.”

When you have more questions than answers, don’t let yourself become bitter. Don’t let questions turn into doubt and bitterness. Faith will see you through. As you grow and heal up, there will be a time when He pulls you over on the side of the road, and says, “Remember that question? Now it’s time for you to understand. You are able to, now.”

God answers questions but not when doing so will destroy you. We’ve got to trust Him for He is all wise. When we are living lives of faith, we need to be sure we’re starting from Jesus and obeying what he has already revealed to us.  Pursue the Lord and He will answer in due time. In the waiting, you will grow in depth, maturity, and knowledge. You will learn how to steward well. He wants to give you a faith that is greater than unanswered questions so that you will represent Him well. One day you will turn around and be able to say, “Our God is so great, so strong and so mighty; there’s nothing our God cannot do.” Amen?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1.    If you could ask God one question and get an immediate answer, what would it be?

2.    Share with your small group about a time when you were struggling with an unanswered question. What did you do to get an answer that question? How did that work for you? What insights, if any, did you gain from that experience?

3.    Pastor Wayne imagines a basket inside his head to hold his unanswered questions until God pulls one out and shares the answer with him. What image can you use to help you put your unanswered questions on-hold until God’s timing is ready?

4.    Do you have a doubt that you are willing to share with others so you can hear their perspective?

Much “Mahalo” to volunteer writer Robyn Hart for her faithful servant heart. Through times of unanswered questions, she remains focused on the Lord and does not doubt that He will see her through whatever challenges come her way.