Sometimes my mind grows weary with questions. I imagine scooping them up one by one, as if shoveling them into an old wheelbarrow carrying around a load of gravel, its wheel wobbling beneath the weight.
Are our kids in the right schools?
What work is mine to tend in this season?
Am I safe and wanted in these friendships?
Do I even want to be on Instagram anymore?
Now if you’ve been around here a while, you know I’m a big fan of questions. Curiosity is an asset of being human, and our ability to know, name, and say our questions out loud fosters humility and invites formation. Questions acknowledge our limitations and ignite the imagination.
The questions in and of themselves are not the problem.
Sure, in our modern moment, the sheer volume or density can be overwhelming. Spend five minutes on the internet (or at least, my corner of the internet) and you can find an abundance of varying beliefs, opinions, and ideas on everything from allergy relief to identity. While it’s good to keep a wide lens on the world, being constantly inundated with conflicting information can also send our questioning into overload. We become cartoon version of ourselves, question marks floating in stormy clouds above our heads.
I do not want to diminish how heavy questions can be or how out of control we can feel while holding them. The complexity is daunting. But I also wonder whether we would feel the questions so intensely if we did not have the often-unspoken pressure to carry a question all the way to its end.
I don’t know about you, but I grew up at a time in the church when having an answer was paramount. Surrounded by stories like Cassie Bernall’s profession of faith that cost her life at the Columbine High School mass shooting as well as prominent books like Lee Strobel’s A Case for Christ, teens like myself felt burdened by our not-knowing.1 We needed to have an answer, to come to rational, researched, and unwavering conclusions. And while I do not want to downplay the critical thinking that was asked of me or the role rote knowledge plays in how we better understand God, ourselves, and the world, the equation was lopsided, at least for me. The mind was king. And what I took from those experiences was an undue pressure to have an articulate, intelligent conclusion. I needed to be an expert. To put a period at the end of every sentence.
But the reality is I am not an expert—at least, not in all things. There are areas in which I have vast experiences and degrees. There is knowing formed by life grabbing me by the feet. In other words, I have my pockets of knowledge, of which I try to dig down deep. I pull out all the contents right down to the lint and offer them up the best way I know how. But that is where my knowing ends.
The idea that any one person can carry every question all the way to its end (and get it one hundred percent right) is untenable. Not to mention, this thirst for knowing that is beyond us is exactly what got humanity in trouble at the very beginning. Tempted by the idea of becoming “like God, knowing good and evil,” Eve and Adam ate (Gen. 3:5). They sunk their teeth into fruit that was not theirs to taste, and even as the juice dribbled down their chins, the knowing soured. Immediately, they began to hide from God and from each other (Gen. 3:7-8). And ever since, we humans have been grasping at knowledge in order to be like gods (or, at least, to be right).
But if we flip back a page or two in the Genesis story, we see that to be human is to be made out of the dirt. God’s tender hands formed humankind out of humus, out of the earth. We had humble beginnings, you and I, and maybe, all this not-knowing is a gift God has always wanted us to have. Yes, he knew we’d have our questions. He knew that we, like Nicodemus, would come to him in the night.2 But out of love, he chose to be the one to contain the conclusions, knowing that even the best of us could not stomach all the answers.
So what do we do, then, with our wheelbarrows? How do we carry the desire for knowing without the residual pressure to get it all right? Well, as irritating as it might be to both of us (but you had to see this coming…), I do not have a neat-and-tidy answer. The human journey is not a one-size-fits-all.
But what I want to offer is permission to put down our questions. Give yourself a little break from the pressure to have life and God and relationships and finances and politics and gardening and grocery lists and school choices all figured out. Perfectly. Right now. Unless you’re saving actual lives, few things in this world are truly urgent, so let the questions linger. The wheelbarrow can stay in the yard for a little while.
Instead, open wide your palms, and become reacquainted with what it feels like to breathe, to let air slide in and out of your lungs. Look out your window at the sky and let the words of Psalm 139 wash away all urgency as you remember how God’s loftiness meets us in all that is unseen and unknown, so that even when the end is fuzzy or hazy or cloaked in shadows, you can close your eyes and whisper, “Even the darkness will not be dark to you.”3 May we let ourselves be a little more human, even if that means shrugging our shoulders a little more often or saying the words, “I don’t know.” Even if that means we change our minds.
The questions will be there for us to pick up when we are ready, and maybe we’ll decide not all of them are ours to hold. But hopefully, we can begin to ask our questions with a little more tenderness and humility, without the need to take every query to its end.
The Columbine story I knew as a teen came from initial reports (like this one). I realize other stories emerged after the incident with varying details. I bring up these examples only to demonstrate the types of narratives I absorbed at that time and how I processed them within my own personality and framework.
You can find the story of Nicodemus in John 3:1-21.
Psalm 139:12 NIV
Nice article, I agree with the sentiment.
I believe 'undo' in here should be 'undue' as well.
I LOVE the line about us coming to Christ in the night like Nicodemus did! That was so beautiful and poetic!
I also felt, wrongly, while growing up that I needed to be able to articulate my faith perfectly. Love that you tied the Human Together theme with the concept that we need to embrace our humanity in the light of trying to be perfect.
I appreciate your instagram presence if that counts for anything!