The Questions God Asks

“How are you?” You’ve answered it ten times today, and I’d bet most of those answers were “busy” or “fine.”

I hear it at my desk all year long. Someone gets close to the room they don’t want to show anybody, and they steer me somewhere else. We don’t exactly lie. We relocate.

The first question God ever asked is only three words long, and He asked it to a man hiding in the trees. “Where are you?” He wasn’t opening a case. He was opening a door.

In Episode 69, I look at three people and the three questions God asked them:

Adam, hiding in the garden: “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9)Moses, stalling at the burning bush: “What is that in your hand?” (Exodus 4:2)A man who had been lying beside a pool for 38 years: “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6)

I think most of us dodge God’s questions in one of three ways. We hide, we argue, or we explain until the explanation becomes our name. I share what I see from my side of the desk as a licensed public accountant, then we look at what God does with a question when we stop dodging.

What you’ll hear

Why we answer a different question than the one we were askedThe hider, the arguer, and the explainer, and how to figure out which one you areWhy the offended party is the one doing the seekingHow the same rod went from “a rod” to “God’s rod”What Jesus did with a man whose answer was “I have no one”Three questions to answer this week, and how to ask the people you love the way God asks you

The line I keep coming back to

God’s questions are doorways, not traps.

Scripture in this episode

Genesis 3:8-10, 21 | Exodus 4:1-2, 12, 20 | John 5:5-9 | Luke 19:10 | Revelation 3:20 (World English Bible)