Why Is It Not Normal to Ask Questions?

Why do we struggle to ask the questions that matter most? In this first episode, we talk about fear, doubt, and the wrestling that often comes with faith. Honest questions deserve honest answers—and this is where we start.

Transcript

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So, we have questions. But they're questions that you haven't asked. Because either they're going to be comfortable or complicated or either just a little bit a little bit risky. Questions that most people don't ask because they just don't want to go there. But in this podcast, we do want to go there because we believe that every companies is ready to questions. We believe that every company has a lot of answers that are more questions over there. So in this podcast, we want you to bring your questions. Let's look at them together. Let's leave it. Let's go there. What's going on, Land of Podcasting, and welcome to the first ever episode of Let's Go There. I'm your host, Ben Pucas, and I cannot believe we're actually in this podcast studio right now. And I'm saying we. You may be wondering who's the we, I only see you. I have my buddy, my good buddy Russell Williams behind the camera. You will never see him. I've actually mentioned it to him that I'm going to mention him. He's like, I'll never be in front of a camera. I never want to be in front of a mic. But the guy knows more about cameras and mics than anybody that I know. And so we have been planning this for months. And one of the really exciting things that we are feeling about this is we believe that this is a huge need, especially for the city that we live in in Cersei, Arkansas. You know, that there's been a lot of people that I've been able to meet with, especially people in the younger generation, especially college students, that for some reason don't really feel like they have an outlet to be able to ask their questions. And I see it on their face when they ask these questions. These really, a lot of times complex questions about faith, and they feel embarrassed as if it's something that they're supposed to know, or if they're doubting that it's not something that they're supposed to do. And then they get to let it off their chest and we get to have a conversation. And it's like, man, thank you so much. Like I needed that. I didn't have an outlet, but now I do. And and that happened enough for me to realize hey, we need to create something in our city like this where people can bring their questions, whatever the question may be, and we get to answer them in a really honest and vulnerable way. Because at this podcast, we believe that honest questions really do deserve honest answers. And so we are going to do that every week. Every week, we are going to bring a question that one of you have about faith, and we're going to be able to answer them honestly. And when I say honestly, I mean any question that you can think of, any question, there is no question off limits, we're going to be able to answer it. And so today's question is actually going to be the heart and soul of what this podcast is going to be all about, why we're even doing this in the first place. And it's the question is why do you think, this is the question one of you asked, why do you think we struggle with asking questions about our faith? And I think the real big idea that we're going to see today is that we don't ask questions not because we lack faith, but because I really don't think we understand two things. One, I don't think we understand faith in general of what faith actually is. And two, I don't think we understand the heart of our God. You know, and even thinking about the first one, like we don't understand faith. Like I think we think for whatever reason that in order for us to have faith, you know, we shouldn't be able to ask questions. Like it's got to be, if I have faith, then I have no doubt. But that's not what faith is. That's not what faith is anywhere in the Bible. You actually see so often in the Bible that people continue to do things despite fear, despite doubt, despite the insecurity. Like I don't think Peter, when he stepped out of the boat and went into the water, he had 100% faith. In fact, we actually know for a fact that he didn't have 100% faith because he ended up falling into the water just a few moments later when he took his eyes off of Jesus. Sometimes faith is not going to be 100%. Most of the time, faith is not going to be 100%. I think a lot of times the faith that we need is just a little bit more faith than unbelief. You know, and speaking of unbelief, one of my favorite stories and miracles that Jesus does is he's in this crowd and this man is yelling out to Jesus. And, you know, they're arguing with the man and telling him to be quiet. And Jesus finally sees him, he goes, What is the big deal? What are we arguing about over here? And he says, Man, like my son, like he's possessed by a demon, he needs to be healed. And Jesus starts conversing with him, and the man says, because if you can do this, like if you can do something, then please would you do it? And Jesus said, If you can, and because if you have faith and if you believe, anything is possible. And he says, Jesus, I believe. But and here's the key help my unbelief. I believe you can do it, but I also believe you can't. And so a lot of times faith is continuing to persevere, to continue to believe, could to continue to be in relationship even when there's doubt and even when there's insecurity. And I think sometimes we we don't ask questions not even just because we don't understand faith, but I think it's because we have this deep fear inside of us. We fear, and the devil just plays in our mind and lies in our mind that we're the only one that has that question. Nobody else is doubting. But something that I've noticed in myself is as I've lived in community and I get to live in authenticity and vulnerability with other people, as I continue to walk out in vulnerability, and the devil is telling me in my isolation that I'm the only one that's struggling with something. I'm the only one that has this doubt. I get to live in community and realize, wait a second, I'm not the only one. A lot of other people are wrestling with it too. But but I think the last problem that we have is the church culture that we live in. The church culture that we live in tells us that we have to wear a mask. We have to have it all together. And I don't think anyone will ever say that from stage. Like, hey, if you're gonna come in this place, you have to act like your family is great, you have to act like everything is going right, that that that addiction that you're struggling with, you have to hide it because everyone's gonna judge you for it. And you see a bunch of families walk into church with this picture perfect family. They're holding hands in the parking lot, they're walking and they're laughing. And I know way too many people that look that way coming in, but I know that on the way to church, they were yelling and screaming at each other. You know, it's chaos before any family tries to go to church, but that chaos never shows up. And I think that shows up in our own faith. That when we do have doubts, when we do have insecurity, I can't bring that up because I'm not the good Christian boy or good Christian girl that God is expecting me to be. But I do not believe, and I actually know for a fact that's not the heart of our God. Because our God is not a God telling us to believe or else. Our God is a God who invites what I like to call the wrestle. Like it's okay for us to have doubts. It's okay for us to question. Because one of my favorite stories in scripture uh is the story of Jacob wrestling with this man. If you guys know the story, Jacob is about to go see his brother Esau. It's a really big deal. He's really afraid. And this guy, this random dude, shows up in the middle of the night, and Jacob wrestles with him the entire night. I mean, I cannot imagine that. I've wrestled with people before. I mean, 30 seconds in, I'm also super out of shape cardio-wise. But I'm 30 seconds in and I'm I'm breathing heavy. I'm like, all right, I give up. Like, whatever. And Jacob wrestles with them all night, though. And finally, day starts to break, and Jacob gets this dude in a in a in a headlock, and he's like, I won't let you go until you bless me. And finally, this guy that he doesn't know who it is, he says, Okay, you will now no longer be called Jacob, which means deceiver. He deceived his brother out of his birthright, and you will now be called Israel, which means man who wrestles with God. And then this dude that Jacob is wrestling with then touches his hip. I mean, a mere touch, his hip goes out of socket, and for the rest of his life, Jacob, who now has become Israel, walks with a limp. Jacob didn't wrestle with a random shmo in the middle of the night. He wrestled with the God of the universe. That's the pre-incarnate Jesus came down, the all-powerful God that said, Let there be, and there was, came in human flesh and intimately wrestled with Jacob, and he wasn't angry about it because we see that all he did is touch his hip at the end of the wrestling match and it came out of socket. He could have spoken a word and destroyed Jacob in an instant, but he didn't. He wrestled with him all night. Why did the God of the universe do that? Well, because think about when you wrestle, think about the closeness, the touching, the breathing on each other, the sweating on each other. It's almost like if you want to wrestle with me, that's fine, because that just means that I get to be with you. And so when it comes to our faith, stop thinking that God is upset about our doubt, our doubts, because the people of God in the Old Testament were the Israelites, and the Israelites literally mean people who wrestle with God, people who contend with God. God doesn't push it away, God doesn't get frustrated by it. In fact, what God does is he welcomes it because at the other end of the wrestle, it's hard. Don't get me wrong, it's very hard. There's there's been nights, weeks, even months and seasons of my life where I have wrestled with questions, I've wrestled with the goodness of God, I wrestled with the sovereignty of God. And and I I'll be honest, the the wrestling with God was not PG. There were things that I said to God that I'm gonna tell you were not kind. Things that I would never say on this podcast, and definitely would never stay on a say on a stage on a Sunday morning. But my God is not an insecure God. My God isn't isn't dependent on my opinion of him. I wrestled, I I said things I probably shouldn't have said, but yet in the middle of the wrestle, and in the middle of my frustration, you know what? I was mad at God, but I was with God. Because on the other end of the wrestle, you know what awaits us? More of God, more intimacy with God. And so sometimes, like I think we always want the idea of answers to be, or the idea of podcasts like this, or asking our questions for us to find the answer immediately. But I will say, God is very rarely the God of the destination. Our God is the God of the journey. He's not just saying, I want to take you to the promised land. He's saying, I want to take you to the promised land, and then in the middle I'm gonna journey with you. And there's gonna be hard things, and you're gonna have doubts, and you're gonna have questions, and you're gonna question me and my character and my goodness. But man, we get to do it together. And then from when you start to when you get to the destination, you are not the same person that started the journey. So what weights us on the other side is not God being disappointed in us because we're questioning him and we're doubting him. What waits us on the other side is more intimacy with him. And really at the end of the day, like, I think this is something we need to understand about our faith and understand about our God. It's funny because we we like to fake our way through things. I feel good. God, you're so good, God, you're so kind, God, you're so loving, which is just so funny because and and and do we should we believe those things? Absolutely. But God knows our thoughts, God knows how many hairs are on our head, God knows more about us than ourselves. And so we're talking to God and talking about how thankful we are for him and how this ooey-goooey relationship that we have with him. And I just see the God of the universe like when we're struggling, going, why are you faking your way through this? Like for me, like I think about myself. I I think about the people that I come into contact with. One of the gifts that I have is is gifts of discernment. And so I know when people are okay and I know when they're not. And there are times I'm talking to people and asking them how they're doing, whether it's over a cup of coffee or lunch or just running into them on a Sunday morning at church, like, hey man, how are you? How are you doing? Oh, I'm doing great, bro. I'm like, are you doing good? Like, yeah, I'm doing great. And like everything in me is like, why are you fooling me, man? Like you're not doing good. And you just faking it your way through it to like tell me you're good. Like it doesn't win anything over. It's the same thing with God. God knows we're not okay. God knows that we're struggling, God knows that we're questioning. And then there's now there's this illusion that we're putting up for him. We're not fooling him. I'm gonna tell you that right now. There is not any kind of fooling that we're doing with God. He knows our inner being, he searches us and he knows us. And so when we're masking it with God and we're not asking the questions that we're actually having, it's actually creating a disconnect between us and God because God is inviting it. He already knows your questions. And I believe because he's a God of the wrestle, he's inviting the question, please ask me, please wrestle with me, because I just want more of you, and then I want you to want more of me. That's intimacy. It's all of this person and all of this person, I mean, conjoining together. Like that's what God desires. That's the way we were created. And so I believe when we ask our questions, no matter how risky they are, when we ask our questions about uh things in the LGBTQ community, you're like, man, he said it first episode. I did say it first episode. God, God is not up in heaven right now going, Oh my goodness, I can't believe he said that. You know why? Because I'm gonna tell you, one of the most asked questions we had was things in the LGBTQ community. And I think God is like, you have the question, ask it, please, because it's keeping you from knowing more of me. And so I believe this podcast, like it's it's existing because there's the disconnect, and we want to bridge the gap. We want people to be able to ask, we want there to be avenues where people feel like there is a safe place. And hear me say this: do I believe that I'm gonna be fully and 100% right in everything that I say? Absolutely not. I believe I'm gonna get things wrong, I believe I'm gonna miss it here and there, but I believe we should not fear getting something wrong. But there's gonna be a partnership with the God of the universe that I'm gonna be able to do and what we get to do together, because here's the deal there are questions that you've asked that I'm looking at, I'm like, man, I'm gonna have to research this because I actually don't know it. Because I wrestle with things myself. And so what I'm committing to you is not to get everything right. What I'm committing to you is that as you're wrestling with your question, I'm gonna wrestle right along with you. I want you to feel seen. I want you to feel heard, but I also want you to know I don't have everything figured out. There's questions that you have that I have myself, but we want people to have a safe place to wrestle with God because I will tell you that I think the reason why, you know, there's a thousand things we can do a podcast on. And I and I've talked about the why and I've talked about this space that we haven't been able to create for people, this is a huge thing for me. You know, I I didn't get saved till I was 19. Uh, I went to a Christian school my entire life, but there was no relationship with Jesus. I never really got taught what it looked like to read scripture and to pray and to be a man of God. So I get to college and realize I faked a relationship with Jesus my entire life. And so I start asking these questions because I'm a very logical intellectual guy. I don't want you to tell me what to believe. I want you to tell me why you believe what you believe, and then I'll make a distinction on my own. And I remember calling people in my life about questions I had, questions that you have very similar to the questions that I had. Hey, the Bible. Like, what makes the 66th book of the Bible books of the Bible the written word of God? What about the other books that are in other Bibles but are not in ours? Like, why aren't they in the canonized Bible? Hey, like, why do good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people? If God is all powerful and all good, then why doesn't He do anything about the problem of evil in the world? I was asking all of these questions, and I'll I'll be honest. The answers I was getting weren't this. Hey, wrestle, let's figure it out, let's do research. All of the answers I was getting were you just have to have faith. Sometimes in life, then you're not gonna know all of the answers, and that's okay. And I just remember feeling that disconnect. Like, what? Like, you're telling me that I have questions and that you this God, that's why I assimilated it to God. Like, God, you're telling me that I have questions, and when I ask them, it's suck it up, buttercup. I'm not gonna be able to tell it to you. You just have to have faith. And I was out. That was the reason I became an atheist for months of my life. Thank God it wasn't years, knowing my personality, but for months of my life, I became an atheist because I was like, I'm not signing up for that. I'm not signing up for this God up there in the clouds, just being like, you're gonna believe in me or else. You're not gonna, you can't wrestle, you can't ask questions. It's that way because I told you so. I'm not seven years old anymore, bro. Like when you know your parents are like, why do I have to do this, mom and dad? And they're like, because I told you so, and it just makes you so angry and you just have to say, okay, because you're a child. I'm not a child anymore. Don't tell me like I can handle the answers, but it made me feel like our God was insecure. Like, don't ask me those questions. Like, I haven't been able to figure it out yet. And then one day I'm I'm walking the halls of the University of South Florida. It's a major university, so there's many halls. And a buddy of mine introduced me to a guy by the name of Chris Gatlin. And Chris Gatlin, uh, we've talked only just a couple times, made one of the biggest impacts in my life. Because he came up to me one day and he said, Hey, I heard you have a lot of questions about your faith. And in my mind, I'm angry at the church, I'm disgruntled towards God, and I'm like, a lot is an understatement, bro. Yes, I have a lot of questions about faith. And he said something that blew my mind. He said, Man, I get that. But what if I told you that our God has a lot of answers? I'm not kidding. It's 19 years of my life. I never heard that phrase. What if I told you our God has a lot of answers? And I was like, so I can ask questions? He goes, Yeah, ask them with me. And if I don't know the answer, let's look at it together. And so he met with me one night to like 10:30 at night, and I'm asking questions and we're wrestling through it. And finally, there's now some answers that are starting to make sense. I'm like, wait a second, that actually makes sense. Like, I get why that good things can happen to bad people and bad things can happen to good people. You just explained to me how the Bible became canonized. Like he's answering all of these questions, and my faith is starting to get stirred up, and he finally gave me an example that blew my mind, and it's one of the things that caused me to go to the Christian camp that I got saved at. Is he talks about a story of John the Baptist, who's Jesus' cousin, he's the person who prepares the way for Jesus. Behold, the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sins of the world. He gets thrown into prison, and Jesus is doing his ministry, and while he's in prison, John sends some of his disciples to Jesus. And they say, Hey, what's up, Jesus? This is the Ben Pucas version. Your boy John's in prison, and he sent us to ask you, Are you really the Messiah? Or shall we look for him somewhere else? I mean, that's definition doubt, people. And he shares this story with me, and he gives some prophecy, and basically in the prophecy, he says, Yes, I'm the Messiah, and this is a long story, probably another episode, is yes, I'm the Messiah, and you're never gonna get out of prison. You're gonna die in prison. And then the disciples leave to go tell John, and right after that, he looks at the people and he says, That right there is the greatest man to ever be born of a woman. And this guy, Chris Gatlin, looks at me, he goes, Jesus had ample opportunity to say that phrase before that time, and he never did. He waited till John had doubts to be able to say, right after him asking that question and doubting his him being the Messiah, he said, That's the greatest man to ever be born of a woman. And then he just looked at me and he said, Ben, our God's not afraid of our doubts. Our God's not afraid of our questions. In fact, right after his you know, greatest man to ever be born doubted, he then made that phrase, he's the greatest man to ever be born. And he's like, So don't ever run away from faith. Don't be afraid to ask questions, don't be afraid to dive in, because at the end of you asking the question, nine times out of ten, there's a really beautiful answer. And that's the reason I started following Jesus. I went to that Christian camp uh uh a year later or a month later and gave my life to Jesus. And it was because I realized our God isn't an insecure God, our God is an inviter of the doubt, our God is an inviter of the insecurity. He wants us to be real, to feel what we're feeling when we're feeling, and to bring it to him. That's the definition of faith is I'm feeling doubt, I'm feeling insecurity, I'm feeling doubt. But Jesus, I'm gonna give it to you because I believe so much that at the end of this doubt, there's gonna be an answer. And if there's not gonna be an answer, there's gonna be an intimacy that I've never experienced before. And so in this podcast, as we're closing up this five this first episode, like I want you to bring your questions. Right now we have a list of 25. We already have the next 25 weeks planned, but that doesn't mean that we can't ask answer questions in between that. Send us a DM. Follow us on Instagram, find us, find me at church, and ask questions. Bring your real questions and let's wrestle together. No question is off limits. There's gonna be honest engagements, there's not gonna be these cliches that we're gonna give, like just have faith. There's gonna be a place to wrestle without shame. And so if you're struggling with God, if you're struggling with scripture, if you're struggling with your faith, if you're struggling just to get out of bed on a Sunday morning just to worship Jesus, do not hide, do not run away, but lean in. Bring your questions here, tune in every week while we get to answer your questions. Ask your friends, ask your family. In fact, I always like to give uh a real application to take home. Like if you're surrounding yourself with people as You're asking questions and they're giving you answers like you just have to have faith, and sometimes there's things in life that we're not going to be able to understand. I'm not saying push those friends away. I mean, those are good friends to have, but find other friends. Find mentors that are willing to wrestle with you. Because the reality is, is there has never been a Christian born. There's never been a follower of Jesus that has never had doubts. Everyone, I mean Moses had doubts. I mean, goodness sakes, like the Exodus chapter 3 and 4 is just doubt after doubt after doubt. And God being like, Do you want to do it or not, bro? Or should I find somebody else? Paul had doubts. Our church fathers had doubts. Whatever church that you go to now, your pastor has had doubts. The person in front of you in this screen has had doubts. But the thing that made them the people they are today is they did not sit in isolation, but they wrestled with it. And they brought it in front of community. They brought it in front of the Lord. Because in the end of that question, what those people, including myself, found was not only a freedom in the answer, it was an intimacy with the creator of the universe. But not just the creator. Not just the big, awesome, powerful God that splits red seas and says, Let there be and there was, but intimacy with the Savior and pursuer of our souls. The shepherd who left the ninety-nine to find us. And here's the deal if God who did not even spare his own son for us, but gave him up for us willingly, how much more will he not graciously give us all things? Why would God save us from our sins when we're his enemies and then when we're his children we have questions? Why would he be angry at that? He's a father who is loving. He's a father who wants to wrestle with his children. So in this podcast, we want you to lean into the hard. There's going to be questions that we answer that are gonna be uncomfortable. That's not because the topic shouldn't be talked about. I believe 100% it's because the devil has made it taboo. But there are answers to our questions. So we want you to lean in with us, we want you to wrestle with us, and we want you to understand. We pray at the end of every episode that you find that there's a little bit more of God that awaits you on the other side. And so, man, we love for you to send in questions. We'd love for you to tune in every week when we post stuff. Would you post it to your story? Will you tell your friends to follow? And so this is the end of this first episode. It's been fun with you guys. I'm excited to be able to do this with y'all. So for y'all to understand, if you're tuning in right when we release it, the first three episodes are gonna be releasing the same week Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And so after that, we're gonna be releasing one episode per week. After that, it's gonna be a release on Fridays. And so we have a YouTube channel. You can see it in the description. And on we're gonna be on Apple Podcasts, we're gonna be on Spotify. And so we would love for you to tune in. And so that is the end of the first episode. And tune in tomorrow if you are tuning in the day of for episode two, which is going to be why does the knit feel like I belong in the church? It's probably the answer that you don't expect. So tune in. We love you guys. See you tomorrow. We'll see you in the next episode. But until then, honest questions deserve honest answers. Hook us out.