Questions and questions and more questions!

In my mail this week, I came across an article in a Farm Newspaper column that I make sure to read often. It was in one of the farm papers I receive and one that I both

found interesting and set me to thinking and later decide to share. The title was what got my attention: Workings of an idle mind on a long, hot summer day. He was musing about how hot it was and that he was and that he was staying inside as much as possible, often with too little to occupy his mind. As he sat, he remembered that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, and that was when he said, “I began thinking weird thoughts. Why for instance, does time accelerate as time remaining diminishes? I thought that was a perfectly sensible question and one that I would also ask. When we are kids, with our entire life ahead for us, birthdays seem to be 10 years apart. And now that we are older and acknowledge we are not Methuselah, birthdays seem to come about once a month. Why do we change our voices when we speak to babies and pets and on the telephone? Have you overheard someone talking on the phone as sweet as sugar, but you can overhear children arguing and fighting in the background? In the middle of the conversation, and covering the mouthpiece, you can hear the speaker screaming at the kids in a nasty, profane voice and then return to the call and finish it in a very sugary voice?”

“Why were we stupid as young and carefree brothers or siblings? We could have spent hours of enjoyable time with our siblings instead of fighting like competing roosters. And now that we enjoy each other’s company, it’s hard to find time to get together. Some could wonder why the amount that is put in the church offering seems so much more valuable than the same amount that you spend in the restaurant. And this question—What will today’s kids tell their kids and grandkids about the “good old days.” Will they talk about riding on a bouncy school bus that didn’t have on board videos? Or when all we could afford were frozen pizzas? Or when we only had one 25-inch TV for the whole family and no stereo sound? And this question—Why did God make Boxelder bugs? Are oranges named oranges because oranges are orange, or is the color named orange because oranges are orange?”

The author, at the end of his article said that he recently realized that the youngest picture of you is the oldest picture of you!!

All this thinking about questions led me to wonder about famous questions. I remember taking a psychology class in college and learned about the basic core questions of life. Questions like—Where did I come from? Who am I? Why am I here? How should I live? Where am I going? Being a naive farm girl, I had never considered that I should be asking those kinds of questions. Today I would add a couple more—What’s my purpose in living? How and when will I die? And, how do I affect others? With the passing of Dolly Parton this week and watching the multiple tributes for her, I think this question is very important!

There are other famous and worthy of thought questions that have been asked on philosophy, existence, and science, and many are worth considering how they apply to me:

“To be, or not to be?” – William Shakespeare (Hamlet).

“What is the meaning of life?” – The ultimate existential question.

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” – A thought experiment on observation and reality.

A philosophical question about life—I must be alive because I think.

“Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” – A classic paradox about origins.

“Where’s the beef?” – The iconic 1980s Wendy’s commercial catchphrase.

There are other Deep & Provocative Questions: “If anything is possible, what is actually important?” “How old would you be if you didn’t know your age?” “What single thing would you attempt right now if you knew you could not fail?”

Daily we face questions. Many of our questions go unanswered. Some are questions we probably shouldn’t ask. If something isn’t “my business”, I have learned that I should not ask questions about it!!!! I have questions that I wish some would ask me, but they don’t and so I keep much to myself. I have even more questions—about why face book shows me some things over and over and others I can never find again; questions about why I have so much pain; why did we deserve such a bad new floor; questions about what Heaven will really be like; questions about how we might travel to family and far away places again, and for summer, why did God create gnats and ticks and mosquitoes and leeches? I am sure that my husband would like an answer to Why do I have neuropathy? No doctor has been able to answer that question for him.

The Bible contains many pivotal questions asked by God that drive its narrative, to challenge human assumptions, and clarify spiritual truths. They are powerful, open-ended questions designed to shift our perspective, uncover core motivations, and drive meaningful breakthroughs during critical moments of decision-making. They act as strategic turning points in conversations, coaching sessions, or personal reflection. Do you know how many questions there are in the Bible? A lot! By one count, there are 2,506 questions asked in the Bible (NRSV translation): 1,679 questions in the Old Testament, and 827 questions in the New Testament. The first question is asked in Genesis 3, the last in Revelation 18. The Bible is evidently a book of questions as much as it is a book of answers.

Questions Asked by God are usually rhetorical, meant to prompt our/my self-reflection rather than to gain information. Here are some of the most important questions in the Bible:

“Where are you?” – Genesis 3:9. Asked of Adam after the fall, highlighting human hiding and broken fellowship.

“Where is your brother?” – Genesis 4:9. Asked of Cain, emphasizing human accountability to one another.

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” – Job 38:4. Asked of Job to establish the boundary between divine wisdom and human limitation.

“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” – Isaiah 6:8. A call for a willing messenger, answered by Isaiah.

Jesus famously used questions as a primary teaching tool to challenge His followers and the critics.

“Who do you say that I am?” – Matthew 16:15. The central Christological question posed to the disciples.

“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” – Mark 8:36. A challenge regarding ultimate priorities and eternal value.

“Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” – Matthew 8:26. Asked during a storm to address the root of fear.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – Matthew 27:46. Cried from the cross, expressing the depth of His suffering.

“Do you love me?” – John 21:17. Asked three times to Peter to reinstate and restore him after his denials.

Some questions are Asked by Humans to God or Jesus that reflect humanity’s search for meaning, salvation, and understanding in the face of suffering.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” – Genesis 4:9. Cain’s defensive reply to God, establishing a core question about social duty.

“What must I do to be saved?” – Acts 16:30. Asked by the Philippian jailer, seeking the core path to redemption.

“Who is my neighbor?” – Luke 10:29. Asked by a lawyer, prompting Jesus to tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

“What is truth?” – John 18:38. Pontius Pilate’s skeptical question during the trial of Jesus.

“How long, O Lord?” – Psalm 13:1. A frequent cry in the Psalms wrestling with delayed justice and suffering.

“What is the greatest commandment?” A two-part answer in Matthew and Mark 12:28-31

“What must I do to be saved?” asked by the Jailer of Paul and Silas in Acts 16:30.

Questions are important, aren’t they? Asking the right question can be even more important than getting the right answer. Perhaps a life well-lived is found not by having all the answers, but by asking all the right questions. In a famous passage from Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet,” we are encouraged to love the questions themselves, rather than always seeking immediate answers: I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

We can try to love the questions, but make sure that they are questions worthy of my life and love! So, what questions are you currently living with? Are they the right questions? The important questions? The questions worthy of your love?

I found a list of 40 questions from the Bible that I consider worth considering for me as much as the basic core questions of life. Here is my short list. Would your list have different ones?

own eye? – Matthew 7:73.

These are all Scripture questions that are compelling to me, and worth pondering and doing further study. There are many more questions, but these 16 should keep me pondering for a while. Did I miss one that is important to you? I invite you to make your own list of questions to think about and search for answer. Our Salvation depends on the answers.

And just for fun, here are some Classic Trick Questions and Brain Teasers. Question: What is so fragile that if you say its name, you break it?

Answer: Silence.

Question: What has four wheels and flies?

Answer: A garbage truck.

Question: What goes up and down but stays in the same place?

Answer: A staircase.

Question: What can’t be used until it is broken?

Answer: A coconut (or an egg!).

Question: How many animals of each species did Moses take aboard the ark?

Answer: None. Noah built the ark, not Moses.

It is plain to see that my life abounds with questions and very few answers. I invite you to resolve with me to walk and talk with Jesus someday soon and get the answers to all these questions and many many more. It will take me all of eternity for the answers and to understand them. For now, see how many you have the answers for.