God made us to question things
Words by Scott Axtmann
As a Christian since 1989, I’ve had a lot of conversations with people about God. Often people who have a problem trusting God point to perplexing questions like the disparity between rich and poor. How can there be a good God when such poverty exists? Or why do bad things happen to good people in general? Isn’t the Bible just a book written by men? Did Jesus really intend for people to worship him?
I think questions are good. Many people want to believe in God, and may even be curious about the Christian faith, but have genuine intellectual roadblocks. There’s no way I can even begin to address all of them here, but I might be able to offer some simple help to the person who incessantly questions.
Regardless of what some insensitive Christian may have said to you, being a skeptic isn’t always a bad thing. Many are simply looking for answers. They want to believe, but find it intellectually difficult to embrace certain aspects of the faith. It’s okay to question things. Not only is it okay but God created us to love truth, and part of that is rejecting ideas that don’t make sense!
Regardless of what some insensitive Christian may have said to you, being a skeptic isn’t always a bad thing.
As a person with a never ending list of unanswered questions, I have realized that I’ll never find answers for everything in this short life. Oh, I’m going to try. I’m going to question everything and search hard for explanations. I can’t help myself! But one thing I’ve learned about God is that He’s okay with my questions. In fact, I am in good company with the many biblical writers who sometimes cried, “Why?”. What I’ve learned is that instead of retreating from God because of my questions I can go to God with all my questions. When I do this I don’t always get answers but what I do get is a sense of peace just resting in the arms of God.
On a practical note, to those of you who are looking for answers, I would recommend exploring authors like C.S. Lewis, Tim Keller and Ravi Zacharias. These are just a few of the writers I’ve come across that have helped me to find the theological and philosophical answers to some of my deepest questions.
Scott Axtmann
Scott grew up in Western Massachusetts and came to the faith at the age of 21. As the outcome of his transformed life, he founded and now Pastors Renaissance Church and CityLove.