The transformative power of questions

I love a good question. I can live on a good question for days – if not weeks. A good question is a key that can unlock truths about God, about life, about our relationships, about who and how we are. It can be a light into the depths of our hearts, illuminating buried hopes and dreams, desires and doubts.  

A good question carries the seeds of transformation in its pockets. 

God the great question-asker 

Reading across the sweep of the Scriptures, it’s clear that God is a great question-asker. In Genesis 3:9 God asks Adam and Eve, ‘Where are you?’ Recognising that it wasn’t a question about location, it pushed Adam to acknowledge that he was hiding from God – and why. God’s questions may be simple, but they are also multi-layered and so the question is also about the newly-opened distance between Adam and Eve and their Creator: ‘Where are you in relation to me?’ 

Later on in Genesis, God asks Hagar, fleeing from her mistress Sarai’s abuse, ‘Where have you come from, and where are you going?’ (16:8) Questions which invite Hagar to articulate the reality of her situation. God responds to her despair with a promise about her life and her future, igniting the hope and courage she needs to return to the place she’d run away from. 

If we allow the questions God asked his people in the past to address us in the present, there is the potential for transformation and growth. For example, God’s questions for Adam and Eve and for Hagar are helpful for any moment in our lives, but especially perhaps in those times when we may be feeling distant from God, when we’re stuck or confused and when the way ahead isn’t clear.  

Questions Jesus asked 

The Gospels are replete with questions Jesus asked, which confronted people with their desires, longings, needs and their understanding of who Jesus was.  

• What are you looking for? (John 1:38 GNT) 
• Why are you so afraid? (Matthew 8:26) 
• What do you want me to do for you? (Mark 10:51) 
• Who do you say I am? (Mark 8:27-29) 
• Do you understand what I have done for you? (John 13:12) 

Jesus’ questions invite us into an honest engagement with him and with our own hearts. For example, reflecting on the question ‘Who am I to you?’ (a paraphrase of Mark 8:29) has challenged me so often to be intentional about recognising what is going on in my relationship with Jesus. At different times and in different seasons, my answer has been: Saviour, Rock, Good Shepherd, a disappointment, a dream-breaker, the interrupter of my day, my safe place, my dearest beloved friend, my heart and my life. 

So many of Jesus’ questions are ‘soul health check-ups’ which, if answered honestly, will draw us into a more intimate relationship with him and into a richer experience of life. Because of their transformative power, they are crucial questions to explore and so when I’m spending time with someone I’m coming alongside, we’ll often pause to look together at one or two of these questions. We’ll also explore the questions we may be asking God. 

The questions we ask God 

Questions are a lubricant in the smooth running of any relationship and our relationship with God is no different – and as much as we need to consider the questions God asks us, we also need to ask God the questions that are stirring our own souls. 

When my niece Jenny was dying of a rare and incurable cancer at the age of 23, my journal was full of questions which I poured out to the Lord. They were addressed to God from the depths of my despair, confusion and grief. When pain drained my ability to articulate my own questions, I borrowed words from the Bible’s psalmists and prophets, who from the depths of their own despair asked God:  

• Why?  
• How long?  
• Where are you?  
• Who are you?  
• What are you doing?  

Their questions were tokens of trust in a God who they believed could control, redeem and release, but who seemed unable or unwilling to do any of those things, so they pounded on God’s chest with the fist of their questions. They poured out their laments to God. They honoured him with their integrity and with their trust in his kindness, his wisdom, his compassion.  

Questions we ask of ourselves 

Socrates famously said, ‘An unexamined life is not worth living.’ More recently writer Ann Voskamp suggested, ‘Spiritual reflection is required for spiritual maturation.’ Questions provide a way into this kind of spiritual reflection. 

Psalm 42:5 has long been a favourite. ‘Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?’ I so appreciate how David, aware that something is not quite right in the depths of who he is, asks his soul: What is going on?! 

After reflecting on the question – and we have no idea how long he pondered it – he addresses his soul with the words, ‘Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him…’ 

Looking through the pages of my journals, questions abound!  

Here are a few: 

• What is dying in me right now – why, how? 
• What is bringing life to me? How can I engage more with this?  
• Where is my hope? 
• What are my deepest desires? 
• How am I experiencing God in my life these days?  

When it’s been helpful and appropriate I have also explored some of these same questions with those I am walking alongside and, for some, reflecting on these questions has been life-changing in so many ways. 

Finally, as much as I love words, I tend to think in pictures and my ‘picture’ of a question and its transformative power is rooted in a verse I memorised many years ago:  

‘A person’s thoughts are like water in a deep well…’ (Proverbs 20:5 GNT) 

I see questions as a bucket that I let down, not only into the depths of my own thoughts, but also into the depths of God’s thoughts, revealed in Scripture.  

And when I haul that bucket up again, it’s filled with life-giving insights, which so often refresh, restore hope and renew courage. I savour it … until the next question comes along.