Asher's Blog

There is a kind of faith that gives people answers before they have even learned how to ask honest questions. It teaches them the correct phrases, gives them a set of accepted conclusions, and sometimes rewards them for never appearing uncertain. From the outside, that can look like spiritual maturity, because the person always seems to know what to say. Yet it is possible to repeat the right words for years without developing a deep, personal conviction about what those words mean.

I do not believe that this is the kind of relationship God wants with us. God does not merely want us to inherit religious habits, perform them mechanically, and then avoid every question that might expose how little we understand. He wants fellowship. He wants interaction. He wants us to grow in our knowledge of Him, and growth of that kind should improve not only the answers we give, but also the quality of the questions we ask.

This is something I have been thinking and meditating about, and something I believe the Holy Spirit has been emphasizing to me: faith should make our questions better. As we become more intimate with God, our questions should become more honest, more thoughtful, more scriptural and more closely connected to obedience. We should not simply ask, “God, when will You do this for me?” We should also learn to ask, “What are You teaching me here? What have You already said in Your Word? Is there something in my character that must change? What wisdom am I missing? What responsibility have I avoided? What would love require of me in this situation?”

Those are not the questions of an unbelieving heart that has decided to resist God. They can be the questions of a child who trusts his Father enough to seek understanding.

The intimacy that makes questions possible

I sometimes think about Moses and the kind of fellowship he had with God. Within the traditional understanding that Moses authored the Pentateuch, he preserved an account of creation, the early history of humanity, the flood, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and events that happened long before he was born. Scripture does not give us a transcript explaining precisely how every historical detail was communicated to him, so I do not want to claim more than the Bible itself claims. Still, when I consider the sweep of those books and the way Scripture describes Moses’ relationship with God, I am struck by the intimacy behind his calling.

Exodus shows Moses asking God questions about his assignment, his authority and the people he had been sent to lead. He asked what he should say when Israel questioned who had sent him. He asked how he could carry the burden of the people. He interceded after their rebellion and pleaded to know God’s ways. At one point, his request became profoundly personal: “I beseech thee, shew me thy glory” (Exodus 33:18, KJV). This was not a man content with information about God; he wanted to know God.

That desire challenges me. I want to have that kind of fellowship with my Father. I want to know the Holy Spirit so intimately that prayer is not a ceremony I perform when I am afraid, and Scripture is not a collection of quotations I use when I need to win an argument. I want to perceive His correction, receive His wisdom, submit my imagination to His truth, and become increasingly able to distinguish His leading from my own desires.

From my Christian perspective, this is the greatest advantage a person can have. Success is not merely the accumulation of money, influence or public recognition; it is first the ability to live the life God has called you to live, with the wisdom, character and courage required for that assignment. Nothing can replace intimacy with the One who knows the end from the beginning and knows us more completely than we know ourselves.

Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:17 that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,” would give believers “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.” In Philippians 3:10, Paul expressed the desire even more directly: “That I may know him.” These two passages belong together in my mind. Spiritual wisdom and revelation are not primarily trophies that make us appear mysterious or superior; their great purpose is that we may know God and walk with Him more faithfully.

The better we know Him, the better our questions become.

Scripture is not afraid of serious questions

The Bible is filled with people asking questions. Moses asked questions about his assignment. David asked how long he would have to endure sorrow and opposition. Habakkuk questioned God about violence and apparent injustice. Job wrestled with suffering that he could not explain. Mary asked, “How shall this be?” when the angel announced something beyond her natural understanding. The disciples asked Jesus to explain parables, teach them to pray and help them understand the kingdom.

Jesus Himself asked questions constantly, not because He lacked information, but because a good question can reveal the condition of a person’s heart. “Whom say ye that I am?” forced the disciples to move beyond public opinion and articulate their own conviction. “Wilt thou be made whole?” confronted a man with the possibility of a different life. “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” exposes the inadequacy of success without salvation.

Faith, therefore, is not the absence of questions. Sometimes faith is what gives us the courage to bring our real questions into God’s presence instead of hiding them behind religious language. The issue is not simply whether we ask, but why we ask and what we are prepared to do with the answer.

There is a difference between a question that seeks understanding and a question that is being used to delay obedience. One person asks, “Lord, help me understand forgiveness so that I can forgive more completely.” Another keeps asking for new explanations because he has already decided that he will not forgive. One person searches Scripture to understand generosity. Another turns every question about giving into a defence of selfishness. The words may sound similar, but the posture of the heart is different.

A sincere question says, “Father, show me what is true, and give me the grace to obey it.”

From mechanical practice to settled conviction

Many believers have practices they learned before they understood them. We may have learned to pray in a particular way, give, fast, forgive, attend church, serve people or pay tithes because that was what our family or congregation taught us. That beginning is not necessarily bad. Children often practise a discipline before they can explain its full meaning, and even adults sometimes obey a clear instruction before their understanding catches up.

The problem begins when we remain mechanical forever. If I have given for twenty years but cannot explain how generosity relates to the character of God, stewardship, love, wisdom and responsibility, then I should search more deeply. If I claim to forgive but have never allowed the Holy Spirit to deal with my resentment, pride and desire for revenge, I may be performing forgiveness externally while carrying the offence internally. If I practise tithing only because I am terrified that something bad will happen if I do not, then fear may be governing an act that I describe as faith.

When you notice that you are doing something mechanically, do not merely abandon the practice. Begin the search. Go into the place of prayer and meditation, open the Scriptures, and ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand what God has said and what your obedience is meant to produce in you.

Ask: Why should I forgive? What is forgiveness, and what is it not? Does forgiveness eliminate the need for boundaries, restitution or justice? How did God forgive me, and how should that change the way I treat others? How do I forgive when the emotional pain has not disappeared? How can I know that I have released an offence rather than merely suppressed it?

Ask: Why should I give? What does faithful generosity look like when I also have responsibilities to my family, employees, creditors and investors? When should I give directly to a person, through the church, or through an institution? How do I give without empowering irresponsibility? How do I protect my heart from pride when my giving becomes visible?

Ask your questions about tithing too. Why was it instructed? How does it appear across the Old and New Testaments? What do I believe about its application to believers, and why? How should it relate to generosity, stewardship, care for ministry and care for the vulnerable? Christians and Christian traditions do not all answer every one of these questions in exactly the same way, which is another reason not to live on borrowed slogans. Search the Scriptures with humility and develop a conviction you can explain and practise before God.

The purpose of these questions is not to make obedience complicated. It is to move from mere imitation to understanding, and from understanding to a conviction that can withstand pressure.

Obedience does not always wait for complete understanding

There is a necessary warning here. We must not turn “I am still asking questions” into a respectable excuse for refusing to do what Scripture has already made clear. If God commands us to love, tell the truth, flee sexual immorality, forgive and care for others, we do not need a special private revelation before we begin obeying. Sometimes understanding comes as we walk in the light we already have.

A child may not understand every reason behind a loving parent’s instruction, yet trust allows the child to obey while maturity develops. In the same way, spiritual inquiry should deepen obedience rather than suspend it indefinitely. We can say, “Lord, I will do what You have made clear, and as I obey, please help me understand Your wisdom more fully.”

This protects us from two errors. Mechanical religion practises without seeking understanding, while intellectual religion discusses endlessly without surrendering. Mature faith refuses both. It searches, listens, obeys and keeps learning.

Every impression must be tested

Finding answers is beautiful, but not every answer that enters our mind came from the Holy Spirit. Human beings are capable of mistaking strong desire, anxiety, memory, ego and imagination for divine leading. The more important a decision is, the more dangerous it is to treat intensity of feeling as proof that God has spoken.

This is why revelation must remain accountable to Scripture. I am speaking here from my own faith position and about the standard I personally receive as authoritative: the 66 books of the Holy Bible, the Old and New Testaments, as I read them in the King James Version. Any impression, teaching or supposed revelation that contradicts the written Word must be rejected, regardless of how spiritual it sounds or how influential the person presenting it may be.

The Bereans were commended because they “searched the scriptures daily” to test what they were hearing (Acts 17:11). John instructed believers not to accept every spiritual claim automatically, but to “try the spirits whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1). These instructions tell us that discernment is not unbelief. Testing can be an expression of reverence, because we care too much about God’s voice to attach His name carelessly to our own ideas.

We must also interpret Scripture responsibly. Finding one sentence that appears to support what we already want is not the same as submitting to the Word. We should read passages in context, consider the larger witness of Scripture, and remain humble enough to learn from mature believers who have demonstrated both sound doctrine and good fruit. Private conviction matters, but isolation can make us vulnerable to self-deception.

A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God has endured because it describes the Christian life as a real pursuit of God Himself, not merely an attachment to religious information. Dallas Willard, in Hearing God, also treats divine guidance as part of a life of relationship and discipleship rather than a technique for receiving spectacular messages. The value of such books is not that they replace Scripture, but that wise teachers can help us notice questions, disciplines and dangers that we might otherwise overlook.

Better questions require better listening

If faith should improve the quality of our questions, it should also improve the quality of our listening. Many of us ask God a question and then rush immediately into noise. We move from prayer to social media, from Scripture to conversation, from one sermon to another sermon, without leaving room to examine what we have read or what is happening in our hearts.

Meditation is not emptying the mind so that any impression can occupy it. Biblical meditation fills the mind with God’s Word, turns it over carefully, prays through it, compares it with our conduct and allows truth to confront us. It takes patience because we may discover that the question we first asked was not the deepest question.

We may begin with, “God, why have You not increased my income?” and, through prayer and honest examination, discover a better set of questions: Have I developed the skills required for the opportunity I want? Have I been faithful with what I already receive? Am I creating enough value? Do I need to change my environment, improve my relationships or confront a habit that keeps undermining my progress? Is my definition of prosperity itself consistent with Scripture?

We may begin with, “Why are people always leaving me?” and eventually have to ask, “How do I respond to correction? Do I listen? Have I confused control with love? Is there a pattern in my conduct that I have refused to acknowledge?”

We may begin with, “Why is this business not growing?” and be led into questions about product quality, cash flow, leadership, customer value, hiring or pride. Prayer does not eliminate practical analysis. It can give us the courage and wisdom to undertake it honestly.

Good questions make responsibility visible. They prevent us from using spirituality to avoid facts.

When the answer does not come immediately

Intimacy with God does not mean that every question will receive an immediate explanation. Scripture contains people who waited, wrestled and continued trusting without being told everything they wanted to know. There are mysteries we may understand later, and there are matters that may remain beyond us in this life.

This is important because otherwise we may begin to manufacture answers to end the discomfort of waiting. We may force a meaning onto an event, call a personal preference a prophecy, or accept the first confident explanation offered by someone else. Yet a premature answer can be more damaging than an honest admission that we do not know.

Faith can say, “I do not understand this yet, but I know enough about the character of God to remain with Him.” Silence is not always abandonment. Delay is not always denial. Sometimes the season of searching is forming in us the humility, patience and capacity required to carry the answer well.

The goal of fellowship is not to make God a machine that supplies explanations on demand. The goal is to know Him. Sometimes the greatest result of a question is not the information we receive, but the person we become while seeking Him.

A practical way to search for answers

When I have a serious spiritual question, I want my search to become more disciplined, not merely more emotional. A useful process can look like this:

First, state the question honestly and precisely. Vague frustration is difficult to examine, but a clear question exposes what we are actually seeking.

Second, search the Scriptures in context. Look beyond one familiar verse and study the broader biblical teaching about the matter. Notice commands, examples, warnings, promises and the character of God revealed throughout the Word.

Third, pray and meditate without forcing an answer. Ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom and revelation, but also ask Him to expose your motives, fears and preferred conclusions.

Fourth, distinguish what is clear from what is uncertain. Obey what Scripture has already made clear while continuing to seek wisdom about the details that remain unresolved.

Fifth, seek counsel from mature people whose lives demonstrate integrity, wisdom and good fruit. A title alone does not make someone safe counsel, and charisma is not the same as character.

Sixth, test the answer. Does it agree with Scripture? Does it produce the fruit of the Spirit? Does it require you to lie, manipulate, exploit or violate a clear command? Is it consistent with truth, love, humility and responsibility? Have you examined the practical facts, or are you using spiritual language to escape them?

Finally, act on the light you have. An answer becomes sustaining when it turns into conviction, and conviction becomes visible through obedience.

Conviction can survive what borrowed language cannot

There is a sweetness in finding an answer through prayerful study. It is beautiful when a truth that once felt like somebody else’s doctrine becomes alive in your own understanding, not because you invented a new meaning, but because the Holy Spirit helped you see and receive what the Word had been saying.

That kind of conviction can sustain you. When forgiveness becomes costly, you know why you must forgive. When generosity requires sacrifice, you know why you give. When holiness appears unfashionable, you are not depending on the approval of the crowd. When a promise takes time, you have something deeper than excitement holding you in place.

Borrowed language often collapses under pressure, but tested conviction has roots.

Our faith should therefore make us more thoughtful, not less; more teachable, not more gullible; more obedient, not merely more argumentative. We should ask questions that lead us toward truth, responsibility, love and a deeper knowledge of God. We should be willing to search patiently, to correct our assumptions, and to reject even an attractive answer when it does not align with Scripture.

Most importantly, we should remember that the answer behind all our answers is fellowship. The great invitation of the Christian life is not simply to know more things about God, but to know Him.

So ask. Search. Meditate. Listen. Test. Obey. Then keep walking with your Father, because as intimacy grows, your questions will change, your hearing will mature, and the answers you receive from His Word will become convictions strong enough to sustain your life.