Do We Encourage Questions and Doubts?

            During this week I have had two separate occasions that have caused me to examine my faith journey to see if I am encouraging students/parents to ask honest and sometimes challenging questions about their own faith journeys.

This week we are hosting our VBS and I am helping out with the 5^th and 6^th grade students.  This has been a wonderful blessing as I get to know these students who will be the future of our youth program at Faith UMC.  On Tuesday, after reading the Bible story (centering on Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead); a young girl said she had a question.  When I called on her she said, “Why did the people in the Bible want to kill Jesus, even though He did amazing things?”  This started a wonderful conversation with these young minds about faith and what Jesus did on the cross for them.  It was truly a wonderful time to be diving into something that I once thought would be well over the heads of 10-11 year olds!  I wondered though how many times to encourage these difficult questions or how often do we facilitate this type of learning.

For me, personally, asking questions has always been a great source of growing in my faith as a Christian.  I had professors in college and friends throughout my life that have always facilitated these types of conversations where questions and doubts can be expressed freely and openly.  For these people, I am forever grateful because they guided me through times of great faith formation.

However, this week I was forced to ask some more difficult questions of God.  Also on Tuesday, I found out that a former professor, pastor, and friend of mine was wrestling with cancer again, in the form of a brain tumor.  A little over a year ago, Stan Buck (lead pastor of Sonrise Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana) began fighting a battle with a brain tumor that was cancerous.  He underwent a procedure and a years’ worth of treatment and was told he was in remission for this entire year.  It was an amazing testimony to God’s healing power and love as he returned to full-time ministry and continued to serve with all of his heart.  However, last Friday, July 13^th, Stan returned to the doctor’s office only to find out that he was showing another aggressive tumor in his brain.  The doctors told him about some preventive measures that could be taken but they were just trails without any “solid results.”  As I read about his news and the brevity of what could be left of his life, I started asking God some difficult questions again.  All of the questions centered on one general them, “Why would a God who loves us allow this type of process to take place in the life of a person who is seeking to serve Him?”  Even as I read Stan’s words that still echoed hope, optimism and love it was hard to fight back the tears of a man who I respect hurting so much. 

This lead me back to the thought of encouraging children, students, parents, and adults to ask difficult questions about their faith journey and seeking to find an answer for these difficult questions.  Are we as a church facilitating this type of discussion or merely skating on the surface?  Are we willing to dive into God’s Word to find the answers or rely on someone else to spoon-feed us the answers?  Please understand that this is not my attempt to say the church (as a whole, across the world) is failing but I am just wondering are we creating space to have these challenging, yet encouraging conversations?