Everyone has big questions. As a pastor, I have had the distinct privilege of people asking me their big questions. They have been asked in the hallway of a hospital. They have been asked standing beside a coffin. They have been asked on a boat while fishing. They have been asked behind pick up trucks, on front porches, at kitchen tables, on hiking trails, during beach retreats and on living room couches. The big questions often come out of the ashes of a tragedy or a hurt or an unexpected experience. The big questions come when someone has been shaken to the very core of their being. The big questions challenge everything a person thought they believed. The big questions are the ones reveal the foundation upon which a person stands.
So how have I answered the big questions?
I always try to give the honest truth. The biblical truth. The truth that we have revealed to us about God and our lives and our experiences in the word.
When I answer the big questions, I have learned that I do not have to defend God. Oh, I have empathized with people in their hurts. It hurts when someone you love unexpectedly dies. It hurts when you have been mistreated by someone who claims to be a Jesus follower. It hurts when a dream dies. It hurts when a spouse walks out. It hurts when you thought those that were friends are not. It hurts when you tried to do everything right and it turns out so wrong.
Often I direct people with big questions, especially for people who are hurting, toward the Psalms. The Psalms give us perspective when our vision in limited. The Psalms cry out for us when we do not know how to cry out. The Psalms remind us of the difficult things. The Psalms cause us to consider the things that we would rather forget. The Psalms give us light.
Over the years, it has been a powerful thing to watch a person who has struggled through a big question and then see them go to the Psalms and watch God do His mighty work. Sometimes, as a person comes out on the other side of the big question it is in a different place than they might have thought. Is the pain any less hard? Is the experience any less difficult to face? The Psalms are used of God to lead us to the place that we need not necessarily what we thought we wanted.
In the darkest of days and when it seems the weight of our big question will crush us, we find a Psalm at just the right time that has exactly what we need.
If there is one thing I have learned, it is that in the midst of our big question we find--in the Psalms--that God is bigger than our question yet oh so close!
Rodney Bradford, Arabi Baptist Church
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