The Importance of Questioning

I am not often prone to doubt. My default position seems to be one of confident optimism. It wasn’t always that way but it has been now for some time. My wife calls me a dreamer, and she is right. I have big ideas and a bold confidence that those ideas can become a reality. Sometimes the dreaming fails to consider the most obvious of realities, and that is a failing of mine, though I hope Joy finds it charming....

When it comes to God, to Jesus, to faith and to this life, the dreaming becomes vision, and the bold confidence finds its foundation in the word of God and the person and work of Jesus Christ. I have learned not to doubt, because God has never let me down, never not kept a promise. At times I have needed some correction and instruction as to what God is up to and what He has in fact promised, which may stand in sharp contrast to what I think and want Him to have promised. If I trust Him for salvation, I can and should trust Him in all things. And so, for the most part, I do, which means that I am not often prone to doubt.

I do question, however. I question a lot. I want to understand, I want to make things my own. And I want to challenge the traditional understanding and application of all things biblical and ecclesiological, not because I think they are wrong or misguided, nor because I distrust tradition, but because I want to connect the practices of tradition, and the doctrine and interpretation of tradition with its biblical source. And so I am open to change to something new and to returning to a much older tradition. I am not afraid of being wrong, critiqued or usurped (though I do not enjoy it overly much either). This process, the questioning process, helps me erase any possibility of doubt. It helps build my faith. Most importantly it is a significant part of the process of transformation and renewal.
God has challenged me to be open to dialogue. As I question I must free myself to be questioned in return. And as I am questioned by God through His word and His Spirit, I grow in confidence and maturity. As I grow in confidence and maturity my questioning becomes more insightful. It is an upward spiral that is only blocked by my own unwillingness to receive God’s questioning. Questioning reveals my limitations and weaknesses, and questioning allows God to extend the boundaries of my limits and become strength in my weaknesses. Questioning is at the heart of renewal and transformation. A willingness to ask questions, to accept answers, and to be questioned in return leads ever deeper into the heart of God, where I can become more of who God created me to be.