Lighting Up Our City Video 6: Dealing With Hard Questions and DoubtsSample

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. (Jeremiah 33:3)

“I don’t know.”

Why are we afraid to say, “I don’t know,” when someone asks us a question about God or the Bible? Perhaps we think that a “good Christian” should know all the answers, and we don’t want to look incompetent or stupid. We have unrealistic expectations of ourselves. And we know how important the gospel is, and we want others to believe in Jesus like we do.

However, we cannot possibly know every answer to every question, so what are we to do in these situations? We can answer, “I don’t really know, but I can find out, and we can get together again to talk about it.” Or we can say, “That’s a great question. I don’t have a good answer for it, but maybe we can look it up together to see what we can figure out.”

God’s Word assures us that He will give us what we need when we ask. God assures us, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3). God will help us find the answers to our questions.

When we say, “I don’t know,” we let the person know that they don’t have to know the answer to every single question to be a believer in Jesus. This gives them the freedom to keep asking questions, and we can go deeper in our conversations with them.

Another gift of saying, “I don’t know,” comes to us. Not only do we help answer the person’s question, but we also learn something we didn’t know. We learn with that person, which grows our knowledge and deepens our faith. And the next time I’m asked that question, I will know the answer.

So, breathe and know that you don’t have to know all the answers. Invite questions. Be willing to say, “I don’t know,” and delve into finding the answer.

God works in and through all our questions. And that’s good news.

By Teresa Baumbach