Could Your Questions Be the Beginning of a More Honest Faith?
A question that will not leave may invite a more careful, more honest examination of faith.
Chris Cahill · 2 min read · Reflection
Sometimes the question stays, even after you have repeated the answer you were taught. You are not trying to make trouble. You are trying to be truthful about what you have seen, felt, or lost.
Mark 9 gives us a father who brings belief and unbelief into the same appeal to Jesus. That prayer can accompany us when our own words feel divided.
Distinguish the belief from its surroundings
A teaching may have reached you alongside family expectations, political loyalties, or a particular church culture. Those memories deserve a hearing. We can take time to separate what we were taught from the way we were treated.
Return slowly to the words you were taught. Read the passage beside them, and make room for the difference between Scripture, a person’s reading of it, and the habits of a community. A trusted companion can help you take that journey without hurry.
An unsettling question still needs evidence
The relief of challenging an old assumption can be powerful. Relief alone does not establish that a new explanation is true. Neither does the fear of changing your mind establish that the old one is false.
Read arguments in their strongest form. Check quotations in context. Let people explain their own traditions. Reconstructing Christ’s preface invites readers to examine the narratives they inherited; the invitation also applies to the narratives we acquire while questioning.
Make room for the person doing the asking
Your inquiry may include grief, disappointment, and relationships that matter to you. It can help to separate the question “What is true?” from “What happened to me?” Both deserve attention, and neither should be used to dismiss the other.
In Mark 9:24, a father brings belief and unbelief into the same appeal to Jesus. You can bring that same honesty into your own prayer. An honest beginning can be small: one question, one careful reading, one conversation with someone willing to listen.
Bring the question gently, without hiding the heart behind it. May our conversations leave room for truth, and for the person trying to find it.
Read a little further
- Book context: Reconstructing Christ
- Mark 9:24 — read the passage in context
Related book: Reconstructing Christ
Wisdom · Unity · Grace
