Questing and Questioning and Friends

Hey folks, it's me, Joe Joe!

I hope everybody's doing alright. Here's a thought for today:

Is it OK to question the Bible and God's word? A lot of people you meet might say no, that's blasphemous or somebody might get offended if I ask a really hard question in church or on a web forum like this.

Guess what? King David, who wrote most of the book of Psalms, questioned God all the time. And he wasn't the only one. ANYBODY who has a real strong faith starts by asking the tough questions. Why me? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God allow suffering and sin?

The answers are all in the Bible, but so are the questions. OK, I have a Bible in my hand, now how do we answer the questions?
Do me a favor and go to Psalm 42. Read the whole thing. David wanted to know more about God. You might know the famous Christian song "As the Deer."

Well that's what this is about! We are supposed to ask and seek and thirst and not have the right answers, because when we come to God questing with our shield battered and our armor torn, he can fix us up and make it right again.

Psalm 42:3 says:
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"

Psalm 35:11 says:
"Ruthless witnesses come forward;
they question me on things I know nothing about."

Ouch! Has anyone ever challenged you like that? It's a pretty tough call to answer sometimes. But if your read the rest of Psalm 42 you'll find out something really cool. When we go broken to God he will show up for us and save us. We have to keep trusting and looking for Him.

The other really cool thing we have is each other. God put the Holy Spirit into every believer so you can help me learn, and I can help somebody else:

Proberbs 27:17 says:
As iron sharpens iron,
so one man sharpens another.

Thankfully we have each other to lean on and look to for help. I'm so glad I don't have to do the whole Christian life all by myself!

Anybody out there read the book of Job? It's a tough one, man. Job is asking all of these hard questions. He lost everything, his farm, his animals, his wife and kids, even his body was covered in boils and ashes. A pretty ugly picture! Guess what? He hung on through it and trusted God anyway. Finally God gave him everything back, plus more.

OK, so my friend is in a tough spot. How can I help them?
So after all of the bad stuff happens to Job, who shows up? His friends! They try to help him out, but they don't have the answers. They helped him anyway just by being there.

Sometimes we don't have the answers, but we can help our friends out by being there and trusting in God along with them.

Blessings, my friends. I'm thankful and praying for each one of you.
Joe