As a researcher, perpetual student, and resident “always available”, I get a lot of questions.
As of today, I have answered directly over 2500 questions related to Scripture in an official capacity. That may sound impressive, but it’s probably only about 100 questions stated in 25 different ways.
If I were to try and log the number of life questions about the mind, relationships, the body, plans, hopes, dreams, and nightmares, I would not know where to begin. I would shudder to consider how many answers I’ve given in the last 10,000 days. And even more frightening is the fact that I have been wrong!
Many times!
If I were to ask my dad and mom about my questioning habits as children, I know they would probably faint. Once, riding in the 1986 Blazer, my father reached over, slightly opened the center console, and let it sit without latching. I asked, “Dad, why did you do that?” His reply, “Just to see if you’d ask, son, I knew you would.”
Twenty years ago in an attempt to gain students for a Bible / Theological workshop, I offered $20 cash for any question for which I ‘could not provide an answer.’ The room was full, I had no money. I didn’t have to pay anything.
These kids didn’t listen to what I said, “could not provide an answer”, which doesn’t mean that I am stumped, sometimes the answer is, “there is no answer”, or “I don’t know.” While some groaning ensued after not having an answer for the atomic weight of an angel’s wing, the interest in the material, and the journey to discovery, launched a weekly event that grew in many ways.
We are a Q&A or AMA-type family. We teach our kids to ask questions, respectfully, so they may learn. We teach them to never take anything as truth until they have determined its source and objectively considered the source. Life is a routine series of question and answer. The sad thing is that we’ve replaced the intimate relations practice of learning in life with getting a fast answer.
For those who know me well, I am verbose. I try not to be, it’s just who I am. I am so cautious of applying information without context that I overkill the experience for most people who just want to know what time it is. But, had I had the option of turning off the desire to lead others to learn, I would not take it. It’s much more profitable to spend time talking and learning how to mine the information for one’s self than it is just to have it.
We need to take time to rest on the simple task of learning through time, together with others. This is the way true stability in worldviews and ethics grows into a movement. By the time the current culture sees the forest, the trees have already been cut down and a parking lot is paved. I want to spend more time talking about how to talk and how to listen. I think you’ll enjoy the journey if you walk a bit with me.
Walk a bit. Let’s see what we can learn together.
I challenged a group of high school seniors last week, as they embark on their final year of high school, to cultivate a mindset of always asking, “what’s next.” I encouraged them to enjoy the moments in the moments, but also to be available when a new opportunity presents itself, and even to intentionally create new opportunities for themselves. Otherwise, life will just happen to us, instead of for us. I know that God directs our paths, but I also believe He gives us imaginations and creative wills to partner with Him in the process and find joy in the journey. Whether those high school kids get it or not (I wouldn’t have at their age. I did not get it at their age.), I want to be more intentional about learning; at least as much as this old dog can.
Superb wisdom! This world is so stuck and deterministic at times.