Living with the Questions

Jesus once said, “Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Matthew 7:7) Over the past couple of days, we’ve reflected on this as an invitation to ask the deeper questions. Many times, there are no evident immediate answers. And so we live with our questions, perhaps allowing them to guide us and even shape us.

At this time, the congregation I serve is asking and living with some questions: How can we foster a deeper sense of community among our members in a very individualistic culture? And, how can we become a more age-diverse congregation at a time when mainline churches are aging? 

As individuals, I imagine, many of us are living with our own questions. I know I’ve got a few of my own. Right now I’m asking: What does it mean to live a worthy life? In a world of fragmentation, how can I build more bridges personally in my life towards people who see the world differently? How can I hold all of the pain the beauty, the brokenness, and the loveliness of the world together at the same time in my heart?

In a recent TED talk, the author, journalist, and podcaster, Krista Tippett spoke about Rainer Maria Rilke, who in the early 20th century, wrote a wonderful series of letters to a young poet who was serving in the military at the time. He was trying to figure out his life, and who he was called to be. Rilke counseled him, “Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart… Try to love the questions themselves…Don’t try to reach for the answers which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to live them. The point is to live into the questions now, then, perhaps someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers.”

Tippett closed with an invitation of her own: “Spend some time formulating your (own) question. Write it down. Commit to having it over your shoulder, in your ear as you move through the next few months of your life. See what it invites you to see and to move towards, and, to move away from. I have found that if you are faithful to living a question, that question will be faithful back to you.”

Again, I pray today, that you and I ever be asking the bigger questions. May we hold these questions in our hearts… living into them, being led by them, trusting that God who is good will lead us in the way. 

Let us pray: Holy God, it is hard to live with uncertainty. It is difficult to face questions that seem to have no answers. We ask you to accompany us on our journeys, on our quests. Lead us and guide us even through the questions we ask, in Jesus’ name. Amen.