For when you have more questions than answers

“Mom, can I ride this skateboard down the stairs?” “Mom, can I chew 5 pieces of gum at one time?” “Mom, can I have a pet snake?” “Mom, can I have a snack?” “Mom, can I jump off of this?” I’ve spent a lot of life answering questions. And to be honest, I’m pretty good at it. These boys of mine are rarely able to trip me up or catch me without an answer. Until now. This season seems to have stolen all of my answers. Every single one of them. “Mom when are things just going to be normal?” I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.

As this pandemic continues to ravage all things normal about our lives, I can’t seem to find my footing. Lord, what we are supposed to be doing? What we are supposed to be learning? My kids will stare into their computers for school again this fall. They cannot gather with their friends. I make my oldest quit his job. And their questions about all of this are relentless. I try to remind them that we should be thankful for our health, our house, and all of the shiny happy things that fill our gratitude lists. But my words feel empty, and I’m not so sure what to do with the rest of the stuff.

I do, however, know this. You still can’t ride that skateboard down the front stairs. But yes, you can have another snack. I mean, why not?

My boys’ insatiable hunger is the one constant that has remained during this whole pandemical season. No matter how much food I bring into the house, it is never enough. They stand and stare into the pantry declaring that there is nothing to eat.

Hungry and unable to find anything that which will satisfy is an uncomfortable place to exist.

Yet on a soul level, it is exactly where I find myself right now.

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” Augustine of Hippo wrote this centuries ago and the words stay stuck on repeat in my head. I am restless and pushing hard against the unanswered questions that are hanging over us all.

I pray and search the Scriptures; everything I need to be satisfied right at my fingertips, yet like my ravenous teenagers, I stand before my Creator and declare that it is not enough. The silence of God in answering all of my questions is deafening.

David’s words again from Psalm 16 keep cycling through my head. “The boundary lines for me have fallen in pleasant places,” David writes as he is running for his life in the wilderness. But the words seem to taunt me. This is not a pleasant place. I do not want to be here. And I pretty sure that most of the world would agree with me.

The boys grab Skittles and Fruit Snacks and wander away from the kitchen, but quickly return unsatisfied and anxious for something more. Unable to help myself, I begin pulling out the food that I know is available, and I make something real. Meat, cheese, fruit, it’s all right before their eyes, but they are blind to it.

Take and eat, I tell them placing plates of food before them, this is the real stuff meant to fill you up.

And the analogy is not lost on my restless soul. When I come running and hungry and declare before my Maker that I can’t see him at work in this, it is always the easy solution I am seeking. The pre-packaged food of quick answers and immediate gratification seems good — until it isn’t.

And suddenly this little-known story from the book of First Samuel slips into my mind; a story of David before he was King David. Saul is the king of Israel and as David becomes more powerful, Saul gets jealous. Hoping to put an end to his enemy’s life, Saul chases David and a couple of hundred men out into the wilderness.

David and his men run for their lives. They have no food, no weapons, and a lot of questions about why this is all happening. Out in the wild, they come upon a sanctuary in the city of Nob and rush into it hoping for protection. They run inside the holy place starving and empty-handed. The priest there claims he has no food except for the Holy Bread which must stay untouched on the altar. And he no weapons except for a sword from an old giant named Goliath displayed on the wall. The place is holy, quiet, separate, and not of much use to these hungry soldiers running for their lives.

But David knows better. David knows God to be a Provider. He knows that the holy place is meant to provide sustenance and strength. He knows holy bread is for eating and ancient swords are meant to protect.

So he convinces the priest to let him take the bread off of the altar. He gives it to his hungry men. Take. Eat. And he pulls the old sword right off the wall and hooks it into his belt. It will protect him. “There is none like it”, he says.

Eugene Peterson writes this about that story in his book Leap Over A Wall, “David and his men come into the sanctuary hungry and defenseless and they leave with bread for the journey and a sword for the fight.”

My boys finish the food I prepared for them and decide that for the moment they are satisfied. “Who knew there was that much food in there,” one of them declares, “it looked like a lot of nothing.”

And isn’t that the truth? I think the same about Scripture and prayer. How can they hold the weight of all I place on them or calm that anxious spirit that won’t stop jumping up inside of me? They look like a whole lot of nothing. Words on a page, silence in the early morning hours, surrendering to a leading I cannot see. How can that work?

We are so much alike; my hungry boys, David with his ravenous soldiers, and you and me.

We are needy.

We are hungry.

We cannot see what is right in front of us.

“Take. Eat. This is my body broken for you.”   A carpenter from Nazareth would break the bread and offer it to his band of confused followers. Bread for the journey and a sword for the battle.

“As the Father has loved me so have I loved you”. They would hear the words, but it wouldn’t seem like enough. How could that save them?

And then they would watch Jesus lay down his whole life for the sake of their hearts, and it would change them forever.

Just like it still changes us.

Because you see, here it is: The God of all Creation is with us.

He is with us here in the very middle of this upside place where nothing feels normal and questions have no answers. And he knows how we doubt it all. But still, he walks into our empty places and begins to fill them with the only thing that will last.

Come hungry, he seems to whisper, And yes. Expect to be fed. Run desperate, breathless, like men in the middle of a battle, like boys with unanswerable questions. Turn around and run toward me. Turn. Around.

Because here’s what I keep forgetting. It is often in the turning that we finally see what we’ve been missing. Immanuel. God with us.

Love drawing near; holiness and earth running right into each other. We come toward our Father, and the bread and the sword that we are given are his; his whole life for the sake of our hungry hearts.

And there we stand, amazed that it is always enough and better than all of the answers to all of the questions.

“Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall not thirst” (John 6:35).