Paul Poulton considers what the outcome would be

Paul Poulton

In Birmingham city centre (UK) I saw a sign which said, "Today there will be a meeting in the council offices with God where he will answer any questions you may want to ask him". It made me laugh but also got me thinking about what questions I would ask if I went along to the meeting.

Some time ago Jeremiah did in fact get the chance to go to such a meeting and his question went along the lines of, "God, I want to talk with you about the justice (or lack of it) that you seem to administer." I can understand why Jeremiah wanted to talk to God about this because at the time he was being treated very badly by the authorities when he was only trying to stand up for truth.

The trouble with asking God any question is that God knows what we are going to ask before we ask it. A bit like being at a political news conference where the politician concerned has been primed and knows what questions are heading his way. Asking God questions may not fare well for any antagonist who tries it.

When Jesus walked around the earth he had a few questions thrown at him, but it got to the stage that no-one would dare to ask him any more questions for fear of being shown up by the answer.

God knows our questions and more importantly why we are asking them and that's the point that may be our undoing. God heard Jeremiah's question asking why bad people prosper but went straight in to where Jeremiah really needed help. God, slightly cryptically, said, "Jeremiah, if you get weary in a race with men how are you going to compete with horses?" This wasn't the answer that Jeremiah expected, and he may have wondered why God couldn't be normal and give a straight answer to a straight question like a man in public office would be expected to? I guess the answer is that God isn't a man, he's God and because of that his thoughts are not like our thoughts.

I think I may get an inkling of what God feels like when we ask him a question, when I try to teach someone how to play guitar. Once, a man who had had a slight stroke and lost some of the use of his hand asked me to teach him to play guitar; his doctor told him to take up an instrument to try to get his fingers working again. The man quite liked the idea of being able to play famous guitar pieces like Cavatina, but I knew that to play a guitar to that standard would take quite a number of years of dedicated practice for an able-bodied person, so a person with little use in one of his hands would struggle to come within 100 miles of it. That didn't mean he couldn't still have fun playing a few simple pieces, so that's what we did. I didn't mention to him that he would never play Cavatina like John Williams, I got on with what he could do and he enjoyed it too and got some use back in his hand.

I tend to think that is often the position we put God in when we ask him questions. A good friend of mine wants to know why God let her mom die before she was old. This is where trust comes into the picture. Christians trust God and that is more or less that. I guess we could all think up some questions that we would like to ask God, but God seems not to look at the question but the reason why we are asking the question, because to him that is the real point. He doesn't have to answer to any man or woman, but because he is gracious he does talk to us. We may not get the answer we are looking for because the flaw is in the questioner; our brain isn't capable of knowing all the amazingly intricate interweaving reasons going through God's mind for each individual person on the planet. I am informed that if I were to try and count God's thoughts about me, I couldn't, the only reference point I could make is that they would outnumber the grains of sand on earth, so I'm more than happy to follow God even when I don't understand exactly what he is doing.

Another man from history had an opportunity to talk to God and God asked him to brace himself like a man because he had a few questions for him. Now there's another twist in the tale because if we start to question God, it's only fair that God can turn round and ask us a few questions. Jesus said, "I will also ask you a question", and you can be sure those being asked are not going to find it easy to answer.

So what questions would I ask God if I had the chance to go to the council meeting? I don't think I have any questions at all. In fact I'm happy to leave things that are too wonderful for me in God's hands.