“Can I see you for a minute?” I looked up and tried to hide my surprise.

This member of the Twins was a great guy but not someone I had spoken to at length before. He had never even attended one of our chapel services. 

I followed him out to the dugout, and as we sat down, I thought we might warm up with a conversation about baseball or the weather. This guy got right down to business. “I want you to know why I don’t attend chapel. At an early age, my parents told me God creates people knowing in advance which ones will go to hell. So, in essence, he is creating people to punish them forever. Is that true? Because if it’s true, I don’t want anything to do with a God like that.”

In moments like this, I am guided by James 1:19: “Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” In other words, even if I have a great answer at the tip of my tongue, if I speak too quickly, I might miss the real reason for the conversation. In this case, the question about hell was the tip of the iceberg. As I asked questions, I began to see a man with a passion for justice and a heart for people. 

As the conversation unfolded, something else was happening. The dugout was filling up with guys waiting to take the field, and several of his teammates sat down to listen in. Whether it is a kitchen table, a boardroom, or a dugout, people all around us are repelled by arguments but drawn to conversations. If we are quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry, we have a more effective platform to declare the truth of God’s Word.

The other advantage of being slow to speak is that it gives you time to pray! Eventually, I asked a question. “On your wedding day, were you there because you had to be there or fell in love?” He answered, “I fell in love.” “Now, imagine God told you that you had no choice but to love him? Would that really be love?” Jesus invites us to love him, knowing we might refuse him. Jesus said in John 16:9: “The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me.” 

We talked about freedom to choose God and then turned to the mystery of God’s sovereignty in the book of Ephesians. “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:4-5).

The dugout was quiet as I shared an illustration from my days as a Bible major at Bethel College. I remember one of our professors describing the scene at the gates of heaven. As we draw near, we see the words etched above the gate. “Whosoever will may come.” As we enter the gate and look back, we read, “Chosen before the beginning of time.”

The mystery is that both are true. 

Now it was time to ask a question. “Because we can choose to love Jesus, we can choose to reject him. So the biggest question is this: are you willing to choose to love Jesus? Are you willing to follow him?”

He stood to his feet. As our eyes met he said, “I’m in.” That Sunday, he walked into chapel for the first time.

As you encounter questions, I believe that most people are looking for two things: an answer and a relationship. This is why I try to build a relationship before attempting to answer a question. When we have no idea what to say, we take heart from what an old preacher once said as he pointed up: “He’s in management, and I’m in sales.” When asked about something like physical healing, I am reminded of what one of our announcers from Africa shared: “I am careful never to take the place of God.” 

There are other times when the only response to a question is to say nothing. I recall the day a farmer stopped by our PraiseLive studio in Osakis, Minnesota, and asked if he could see me for a few minutes. Because I grew up on a farm, his heavy work boots and coveralls were familiar sights. As we sat down, he began to cry. Then he began to weep. As he gained his composure, he shared about the day he was cutting wood with his sons. There was an accident, and one of his sons was crushed under a falling tree. As he drove his son at high speed to the hospital, he lost control of the vehicle. This accident took his other son’s life. 

As his pain and questions poured out, there was nothing to say. His tears said it all. I wrapped my arms around him and held his pain close to my heart. 

As Jesus walked on the earth, he welcomed our questions and held our pain. After the death of Lazarus, when Jesus finally arrives four days later, Martha greets him with, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21). Jesus answers her grief and “if only” with a life-changing declaration. “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying” (John 11:25). As Lazarus comes forth, “if only” is replaced with a revelation of the glory of God. 

This poem is by Ruth Bell Graham:

I lay my “whys?”
Before your cross
In worship kneeling,
My mind beyond all hope,
My heart beyond all feeling;
And worshipping,
Realize that I
In knowing You,
Don’t need a “why?”

Our only hope is to bring our questions to the resurrection and the life of Jesus. Our questions are holy ground as we lay them at the foot of the cross.