Are We Afraid to Ask?

Have you ever wanted to know something but were afraid to ask? I have even as an adult and especially as a kid. There was an old fellow in the town I grew up in that wore a patch over his eye and I always wondered how he lost his eye but was afraid to ask him. In fact all of us kids were afraid of that guy, he looked like a pirate and talked rough. He would catch us somewhere and would threaten to pull that patch off and we would fly!

The fear of asking questions goes way back to Bible times. St. Mark tells us that Jesus told His disciples that He was going to be killed but that He would be raised from the dead three days later and they did not understand what He meant, but were afraid to ask Him (Mark 9:32). I wonder why they were afraid to ask Him what He meant. We know what He meant . . . . now. We have the New Testament that explained it to us and we have the account of His death and resurrection; but they never had that. They only had His words at that moment.

Which brings me to the point of my message today; are there things we are afraid to ask Him even now? I mean, things like why did my mom have to get cancer and die. Things like why are You allowing all those Christians to be killed in Iraq. How about this one; why did you allow my spouse to leave me because they said they do not love me anymore. Maybe even, why did You allow my precious child to die. These are very personal and heart wrenching questions. I am sure we have asked why many times and yet we are like the disciples that day; we still don't know what it all means. We can all agree that there are things which He allows that we do not understand now but we know as people of faith that He is never powerless in any of these situations.

There are other questions some do not want to ask. Questions that we know the answer to but really do not want to hear His reply. "Am I praying enough?" "Am I reading Your Word enough?" To name just a few. We know that He loves us regardless of how He replies to those and because we know He loves us anyway, we kind of just don't ask them a lot.

Never be afraid to ask Him anything; yes, anything. He knows what we would like to know anyway but it sure does give Him joy when one of His kids ask!