Questions God is Still Asking
Where are you? (Genesis 3:9)
After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they hid themselves from God. As if they could. When God calls out “Where are you?” it is not because He does not know where we are. God is instead asking “Why are you hiding from me?” It is God’s plea: “I love you. I want to be in relationship with you!” Don Francisco sang a touching song about Adam and Eve’s avoidance then – and ours now. Listen to it and reflect on God’s question: “Where are you?”
What is this you have done? (Genesis 3:13)
Adam and Eve still didn’t realize the repercussions that their doubt in God’s Word would have, for them and for generations to come. Pain in childbirth, sweat and toil, thorns and thistles, all these. Banishment from the presence of God? Not that! Yet out of love their creator comforts them – physically with a leather garment and spiritually with a promise, a promise that her seed would one day overcome the evil that caused the separation. What have I done that is separating me from my loving Father? What must I do to restore my relationship with Him?
What are you doing here? (1 Kings 19:9)
At God’s command, Elijah had recently emerged from exile and had just performed the ultimate act of trust in his Lord (Read 1 Kings 18, one of the most dramatic narratives in the Bible). Unlike Adam and Eve, Elijah trusted and obeyed. Even so, when Elijah then heard that the evil queen Jezebel was threatening him, “He was afraid and fled for his life…. He sat down under a broom tree and asked that he might die.” God met Elijah not only in his triumph, but also in his despair. He fed him, gave him needed rest, strengthened him, and showed him he wasn’t alone. Where am I? What am I doing there?
What are you looking for? (John 1:38)
A trusted friend gave testimony that Jesus is the way, and so we followed. When Jesus turned to us and asked, “What are you looking for?” what could we say? “Teacher, where are you staying?” we managed to stammer. All we knew was that something, someone is missing. What AM I looking for? Could it be the One who is looking for me? Where am I? What am I doing there? Am I in right relationship with God? With others?
What do you want me to do for you? (Mark 10:51)
Jesus asks this of Bartimaeus, a blind man along the road to Jericho (and similarly to others – see Matthew 20:21 and Mark 10:36 for example.) Bartimaeus was persistent in prayer, continually calling out to Jesus even in the face of many rebuking him, telling him to be quiet. When told Jesus was calling him,
“He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, “Go your way, Your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.”
Am I being persistent in prayer? Am I asking in faith? If Jesus told me to “Go your way,” which way would that be? Would it be “my” way or the “High” way?
Why are you anxious? (Matthew 6:28)
We worry about tomorrow. We worry about next year. And yet most of what we worry about will never come to pass. Jesus tells me that the birds of the air don’t spend their time in worry. Neither do the lilies of the field. “You are anxious and troubled about many things. There is need for only one thing.” (Luke 10:41, 42) Do I believe that God is trust-worthy?
Do you want to be well? (John 5:6)
Jesus asks this of a crippled man at the pool of Bethesda. Unlike the faith of the blind Bartimaeus, the crippled man didn’t even know who Jesus was, and yet he was still healed. God gives us gifts in our belief and in our unbelief. What do we do with those gifts? We are all crippled, each of us in a unique way. David Ring has had to endure numerous trials. Born barely alive, broken, “walking and talking funny,” he could not fit in. As a motivational speaker David is best known for his challenge: “I have cerebral palsy. What’s your problem?” We are all crippled by sin, which separates us from God today just as in the Garden of Eden. Jesus has made a way for us to be well again. What’s your problem? Do you want to be well?
Who do you say that I am? (Matthew 16:15)
Jesus asks this of his disciples, who had told him that some thought he was John the Baptist, some Elijah, others Jeremiah or another prophet. Today some say Jesus is merely a first century Rabbi, a minor Jewish prophet, or even a disturbed man who had a God complex. Who do I say that Jesus is? Can I confidently answer as Simon Peter did? “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
What is God asking you?
Where are you going? (Genesis 16:7) Do you believe? (Matthew 9:28) Why were you searching for me? (Luke 2:49) What does it profit one to gain the whole world? (Matthew 16:26) Who touched me? (Luke 8:45) Why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4)
There are hundreds of questions that God poses to us in scripture. When God asks us a question, shouldn’t we pay attention? He wants to engage us, calm us, turn us in the right direction. God wants to be in relationship with us so that we might share in His divinity. God wants me to be a Saint! How awesome is that?
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