Don't Be Afraid To Ask

She had only been a Christian for seven months when I met her but during those months she had read through the Bible twice and the New Testament six time. She had been raised in a Communist country and for the first thirty years of her life she had been told there was no God. She was taught all things could be accomplished through human effort. Now her eyes were open to a new world she had never known before, a spiritual world. She had experienced the spiritual birth Jesus talked to Nicodemus about in the third chapter of John.

As I listened to her talk I was reminded of two scriptures, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;  the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17 and "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26 Her eyes shone with the excitement of this new life.

I was impressed with the enthusiastic way she was reading through the Scripture. It was all new to her and she could not get enough of it. However, she had many questions. What she had been taught and what she was learning in God's word were two very different ways of thinking. When she asked me her questions I was impressed at how different they were from the questions I ask. Her questions were formed in part by the culture she had born into and the things she had been taught from her youth.

To be honest I didn't have an answer to all her questions. But I shared with her what I have learned as a Christian seeking to understand God's word. I believe this is part of God's plan to draw us closer to Him. Jesus said, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7 Jeremiah 29:13 says, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Our questions are as different as our experiences but as we ask our questions we are draw deeper and deeper into our relation with God.

Lord Jesus, after all these years of being a Christian I still have so many questions. Please help me take the time to formulate them so that I can ask, seek and knock. Please help me to be as enthusiastic as this young Christian so that I seek you will all my heart,