Let’s Get Caught Up
If you’ve listened to the podcast or read the blog for any length of time, you know we’re all here wrestling with the Great Omission – the fact that modern Christianity is struggling to make disciples, people who spend their lives apprenticing with Jesus to become more like Him, from the inside out.
Spiritual formation is about the forming of our character, though that’s not what many of our institutional churches are focused on. They may be focused on making converts, doctrinal conformity, service, social justice, or preserving tradition. Those things all have their place, but individual character formation requires a much more personalized approach to Christianity than what many of us experience.
And in our current era, we face three obstacles: the Discipleship Dilemma, the Formation Gap, and the Forgotten Kingdom. If we really want to simplify things, we can boil those challenges down to just three words: story, community, and purpose.
What is the grand story of the Bible, and how is Jesus writing our stories into His? If our journey to become more like Jesus means we also know our hearts better, how do we do that?
Do we have access to and are we part of specific communities designed to form our hearts? If spiritual formation is a journey best taken together, are we doing that?
And are we clear why Jesus came and why we’re here? What is our purpose?
In Season 2 we focused on story, Season 3 was all about community, and now we’re exploring purpose.
So far we’ve explored the kingdom from three angles:
First, we looked at various definitions of the kingdom of God. Then we took a look at how our conscious or unconscious assumptions about the End Times impact our ideas and definitions about the kingdom.
And then we asked ourselves that, although we pray “thy kingdom come” all the time, do we really want it to come? Perhaps the reason the kingdom has been forgotten or reduced in our minds isn’t because it’s all that complicated, but because we may not want to bear the costs of the kingdom.
Of the Three Primary Problems, the Forgotten Kingdom is the trickiest, primarily because modern Christianity is having a hard time coming to a consensus on what it actually is.
Last episode, Kyle shared the results of the straw poll he conducted with his friends. He asked them to text him their definitions of the kingdom, and he received at least four different groups of responses:
- Heaven
- The spiritual, invisible life of a Christian
- General obedience to the Bible
- God’s rule over everything
Those are four pretty different assumptions about the Kingdom.
Why does it matter? Because our unconscious ideas about the kingdom play a key role in defining our ideas about our purpose. And our ideas of purpose play a key role in defining who we’re becoming.
Our view of the kingdom not only influences our ideas about our purpose but also Jesus’ purpose. Why did He come to earth? Did He come to save us from creation, or did He come to save all of His creation? Is the point to get to heaven or get heaven into us? What role does the church have in His mission?
Describing the Kingdom
We explored Seven Characteristics of the Kingdom in light of the confusion that currently reigns in our era.
- The Kingdom arrived with the arrival of the King.
- The King is also the Key.
- The Kingdom is growing.
- The Kingdom is cosmic.
- The Kingdom is both spiritual and physical.
- The Kingdom is already here, but not yet.
- The Kingdom of Light is greater than the Kingdom of Darkness.
Those characteristics have led us to resonate with Jeremy Treat’s definition of the kingdom: “God’s reign through God’s people over God’s place.”
Dallas Willard described it this way:
The kingdom of God is the range of God’s effective will, where what God wants done is done. It is, like God, from everlasting to everlasting. The planet Earth and its immediate surroundings seem to be the only place in creation where God permits his will not to be done. Therefore we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” and hope for the time when that kingdom will be completely fulfilled even here on earth – where in fact it is already present and available to those who seek it with their hearts.[1]
Turning the Corner
So, while we have a few starter definitions, we recognize the ideas of the kingdom are far from settled in modern Christianity.
For the next batch of episodes, we’re going to pivot to a fascinating exploration of what it means to be a Kingdom-dweller. What sort of qualities marks a person living in the Kingdom?
However, being that this is Soil and Roots, we aren’t going to explore living in the kingdom in traditional ways. No, why in the world would take the well-trod path?
We’re all about digging underneath the surface here, exploring the hidden ideas that form us, the church and our culture, and perhaps causing a few heated family discussions in the process.
It would be tempting to talk about life in the Kingdom based on the Great Commission. If a disciple is someone who “obeys all that Jesus commands,” we could simply list all of the things Jesus commanded and talk about them. Good news, lots of books have already done that. John Piper wrote one appropriately titled, All that Jesus Commanded, and it’s a helpful study of Jesus’ red-letter instructions. However, we could make the argument that the Great Commission doesn’t just include what Jesus said during His time on earth, but instead the entirety of the Bible.
We could also look at other lists of characteristics or qualities of Kingdom-dwellers in the Bible, such as the beatitudes, the fruits of the spirit, or even the gifts of the spirit. Again, if you’ve been around Christianity for any length of time, you’ll find countless books, podcasts, sermons, articles, and essays about those lists. Those are all well worth examining.
However, I stumbled across a quote by Richard Foster recently, and it really stuck with me.
He said, “Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”[2]
We don’t need more intelligence or more gifts, we need depth.
It’s not that the red letters of Jesus aren’t deep – good heavens they are. But I fear we’ve read them and heard them so many times, they’ve lost some of their luster and meaning.
Besides, we can read off the list of all of the things Jesus commanded, and then attempt to just do them. Though that may boil down Christianity to a “Just Do It” religion.
But didn’t Jesus say, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments”?[3] The sense is that, if we’re becoming people of depth, people of profound love, peace, contentment, and freedom, obedience to all that Jesus commanded may somehow take care of itself.
For all of the efforts to train people on apologetics and evangelism, both of which are great, perhaps we’re missing a more fundamental truth. It may not be as much about scripts, four laws, two questions, or simple pictures. It may be more about us, our hearts, who we are becoming.
Shockingly, at least to me, Dallas Willard once wrote, “We want disciples…and if you are intent on making disciples and keep on that track, evangelism will take care of itself.”[4]
Meaning, that if we are intentionally being spiritually formed, we’ll find ourselves quite naturally sharing about Jesus and the kingdom in a myriad of ways. Doesn’t that seem somewhat odd in a Christian culture intent on systems, training programs, and tactics?
Here we are again, back in the realm of what we truly love, what we desire. And what unconscious ideas influence those desires. We’re back at soil and roots.
So, we’re going to do some excavating here, and we’re going to try to peer into the biblical narrative and into our hearts to unearth some qualities of a Kingdom-dweller that may not be so apparent on the surface.
For several weeks, I’m going to pause my habit of naming each episode after sometimes obscure cultural reference. Episodes in this little mini-series will be named “Kingdom Dwellers” followed by whatever characteristics we’re exploring.
Courageous Curiosity
Today we’re going to start by excavating a characteristic of a Kingdom-dweller that we’ve mentioned on and off before. It’s a quality of being that, in our fast-paced, instant information age, we sometimes forget along with the kingdom itself.
One of the most pivotal qualities of a Kingdom-dweller is courageous curiosity: the desire, passion, and habit of asking heart-level questions. Of God, of others, and of ourselves.
As we’re about to discover, if we want to better embody qualities such as love, kindness, gentleness, self-control, humility, and freedom…we often need to start with courageous curiosity.
Is God Curious?
If our journey of spiritual formation is focused on becoming more like Jesus, we should ask ourselves this question, “Is Jesus curious?” Is God curious?
How can God be curious if He’s omniscient?
One thing’s for sure. God asks a lot of questions.
Perhaps the most poignant question in the Bible is His first recorded one, asked of Adam and Eve. They took the fruit from the wrong tree, in effect declaring their autonomy from God, and then they hid. God simply asked them, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3).
Surely He knew where they were…so why did God ask a question to which He already knew the answer?
Trevor Hudson explored some of God’s questions and listed several from both Testaments in addition to “Where are you?” If we listen carefully, we quickly realize God isn’t asking the question to get the “right” answer. In most cases, the answer is obvious. There’s something much more profound going on here.
I’ll read a few of these questions and see if you can identify the story.
- Where is your brother? (Genesis 4:1-9, asking of Cain)
- What is that in your hand? (Exodus 4:1-4, asking Moses about the staff in his hand)
- What is your name? (Genesis 32:22-32, asking of Jacob right before He changed his name)
- What are you doing here? (1 Kings 19, asking of Elijah right after he fled from Jezebel)
- What are you looking for? (John 1:19-38, Jesus asking some of His early followers)
- Who do you say that I am? (Mark 8:27-29, asking of His disciples)
- Do you want to get well? (John 5:1-9, of the man who has been sick for 38 years)
- Why are you crying? (John 20:11-18, asking of Mary Magdalene after His resurrection)
- Do you understand what I have done for you? (John 13, after He washed His disciples’ feet)[5]
If God already knows everything, why does He habitually engage in asking questions, especially questions that seem obvious or elementary?
Trevor Hudson proposes three reasons:
“To begin with, God wants to enter into a conversational relationship with each of us. One way in which God shows this deep desire is by asking questions. They are the same questions that God asked the people of God throughout the Bible. When we start hearing them as addressed to us, we receive a glimpse into those things that God wants to talk about with us. Our answers draw us into a relationship of deeper sharing and intimacy with God….
Second, God gives greater dignity to us by allowing us to wrestle with the questions rather than simply giving us the answers….
And third, a question has greater power to transform us than a straightforward answer, especially when it comes from God who knows exactly what questions to ask.”[6]
I think Hudson hits on something very important here. God’s curiosity (if we can call it that):
-invites us into a deeper relationship
-gives us dignity by allowing us to wrestle rather than simply being told what to do
-provides greater power to transform us
So being curious is not really about asking a question to get the “correct” answer. It’s about relationship, dignity, power, and freedom.
It’s about inviting someone, maybe even ourselves, into a deeper reality, a deeper understanding, a deeper connectedness.
Do you know how many questions Jesus asked in the Gospels? Take a second to make a mental guess.
In the four Gospels, Jesus is recorded asking a question 307 times.[7]
The Biblical narrative displays a God who is consistently and persistently asking questions – not simply to receive a simple answer, but rather to invite us into a deeper experience with Him and others.
Curiosity Killed the Cat
I’m not entirely sure “courageous curiosity” is something we’d normally envision as a characteristic of a deep disciple. I’m not even sure we’re trained, encouraged, or given permission to ask probing questions.
At least that’s not the way my education worked growing up. I listened to a lecture, read a textbook, memorized information, and spit it back out on a multiple-choice test a few days later. Sure, I had a few classes where we were asked to write a thoughtful essay or attempt to distill what we had learned, but overall, the point wasn’t to learn how to ask creative questions – it was to take in information assumed as fact and be able to repeat it back when asked.
Didn’t we hear somewhere that “Curiosity killed the cat?” You remember the cartoon Curious George. We loved watching George’s monkey antics, but let’s face it, his curiosity normally led him into trouble from which he had to be rescued, over and over again.
How about our normal interactions with friends or folks at church?
“How’s it going?”
“Great!”
“How’s the family?”
“Wonderful, just praising the Lord.”
If, by chance, we encounter someone who answers, “You know, I’ve really been struggling this week to get a sense of God’s presence,” or “I just can’t figure this prayer thing out. I’m not even sure what to pray for anymore” we may not be sure how to respond. Let’s be honest: we rarely ask polite social questions expecting to get a real response.
Curiosity and Christian Institutions
I remember sitting in 10th-grade history class. We were studying world religions and happened to be discussing Christianity. Our teacher, whose name was ironically Mr. Cross, asked the class, “How many times a day is a Christian supposed to pray?”
I eagerly raised my hand as I was sure to get this one right. He called on me and I responded, “We’re supposed to pray without ceasing.” Mr. Cross laughed, made a joke, and informed the class that Christians are supposed to pray three times per day. I wanted to ask a follow-up question and bring up the Apostle Paul, but he had already moved on.
This is sometimes what our Christian experience feels like. Take the information our pastors, teachers, or professors give us, accept it, and move on.
Earlier this year I heard a sermon in church where the pastor compared God to Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid and quoted him, “I say, you do, no questions.”
Is that how we’re supposed to relate to God? “God says, we do, no questions?” I wonder what Job, Moses, David, Jeremiah, or the disciples would say about that impression of God.
It was one of the most unfortunate and disappointing sermons I’ve ever heard.
Think about the underlying ideas of that type of relationship. It’s not a relationship based on intimacy, mutual communication, depth, love, or a passion to get to know one another. It’s authoritarian, legalistic, and transactional. It removes dignity from the equation. And it kills courageous curiosity. We aren’t allowed to ask why, or how, or what. We’re just to obey without thinking. Is that the type of father anyone wants?
Abraham negotiated with God on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses complained his way into getting some help from his brother, Aaron. When the angel told Mary she was going to give birth to God, she had the bold courage to ask, “So how’s this going to happen?”
It seems that God appreciates, honors, values, and responds to our curiosity. Because it’s a pathway to a deeper relationship.
Why Is It So Difficult to Be Curious?
At least in my experience so far, I run into precious few truly curious people. They aren’t curious about God, or others, or even themselves. We just…do. It’s not that people aren’t polite, it’s that not too many people I’ve encountered are all that interested in depth, the thing that Richard Foster said is most desperately needed.
If God Himself consistently and lovingly asks probing, sometimes challenging questions in order to deepen our relationship with Him, to reveal things about Himself and us, why would we not pattern our trusted relationships after that same habit?
Pastor Rich Villodas explored this in one of his books, primarily about our lack of desire to ask curious questions about ourselves. He suggested we consciously or unconsciously resist and suppress our curiosity because:
-We fear it might lead to despair, either by what we learn about God or others, or even about ourselves
-Busyness. We purposefully keep ourselves preoccupied to avoid curiosity.
-Compartmentalization. Villodas writes, “Compartmentalization, in this context, refers to a kind of splitting of ourselves in which we offer some parts of our lives to God but deny the rest. This insidious practice of splitting refers to the subconscious habit of disconnecting aspects of ourselves.”[8]
In short, we just ignore or reject parts about ourselves or those close to us with which we don’t want to engage.
He goes on, “Like a child hiding a broken figurine from his mother for fear of judgment, we hide broken parts of ourselves from others (and more importantly, from ourselves) in an attempt to deliver us from judgment.”[9]
In a marriage, this may look like a husband hiding his Internet habits from his wife, or the wife’s reluctance to confess her deep insecurity to his husband. In many marriages, a short list of things “we just don’t talk about anymore” tends to grow over time to the point that, down the road, there isn’t much left to talk about.
Curiosity is inherently risky. By asking deeper questions of God, others, or ourselves we may well find some beautiful, hidden, wonderful riches. But we may find hurt, harm, sin. It may compel us to confront some things about ourselves or those close to us that, if we’re honest, we’d just rather leave alone.
Being courageously curious is really about extending an invitation to open up our hearts and be vulnerable, sometimes uncomfortably so, to deepen our experience and love more freely.
Curious across Three Relationships
So, what might courageous curiosity look like across our three relationships: with God, others, and ourselves?
Soil and Roots is a big fan of Greenhouses – small groups of 4-12 people who meet consistently to become more like Jesus. We practice four different what we call “rhythms,” one of which is called “Soul Care.” It’s based on some ancient spiritual disciplines but was extremely popular a few hundred years ago in America during the birth and rise of the Methodist Church.
When we meet, we simply ask ourselves this question, “How’s our friendship with Jesus been this week?” Or “How are things with your soul?” It’s an open-ended, curious question that invites anyone in our group to share how they are being formed more like Jesus.
When we first started meeting, it took a few weeks for everyone to feel comfortable answering such a vulnerable question, but now it’s one of our favorite times. Stories are shared, love is extended, connections are strengthened, prayers are offered, laughter breaks out, and community is deepened. No one is obligated to respond and sometimes we run out of time, but it’s an intentional discipline of cultivating curiosity.
That’s just a simple example of practicing curiosity in a group.
Curiosity with God
What about curiosity in our relationship with God? Well, if you grew up under a pastor like the one who preached, “God said it, just do it, no questions,” you may not have much of a context for asking God curious questions. You may assume you don’t have that privilege. Hopefully, that hasn’t been your experience.
I’ll share something I’ve started doing as I read the Bible. I’ve begun asking curious questions about the text, a lot.
Why are there two creation accounts? Why is Abraham affirmed as having obeyed the law when the law hadn’t been given yet? Why are so few details provided in so many Biblical stories?
What did Jesus write in the dirt with his finger? What is Mark’s fascination with the word, “immediately,” which he uses all the time in his Gospel? What exactly was the star that rested over Jesus’ house? Matthews tells us that other dead bodies were raised after Jesus’ crucifixion and they appeared to people in Jerusalem. That’s it? We get just two verses on that?
I’ve become more comfortable asking God questions in my prayer time. Sometimes I feel like I’m five years old again, plaguing my parents with the question, “Why,” every five minutes. I know, I know, Job never got an answer to his “why” questions,” but he was certainly allowed to ask them. And lots of people did get concrete answers to their questions.
Curiosity about Others
Ah, this one can be tough. It’s one thing to be curious about God. Although God certainly isn’t safe, we know He’s good. We know He can be trusted, even when our hearts have a hard time embracing it.
But people? That’s another story. If the purpose of being courageously curious is to help each other uncover the hidden ideas that form us, and we know that journey may embody some uncomfortable moments, how do we begin to develop the habit of asking curious questions in the proper context?
Well, that’s the first point. Not every person or every conversation is primed for courageous curiosity. We need to practice wisdom and discernment.
However, if we are growing to be more like Jesus, we should trust the Holy Spirit to prompt us if He desires us to love someone well by asking curious questions. I seriously doubt we’re overdoing this habit. My suspicion is many of us are leaving opportunities to deepen our love for one another on the table because of our own fears, busyness, or egos.
We might just start by asking permission. If we’re having coffee or chatting after church with someone, we might just ask, “Do you mind if I ask you a more curious question?”
We may already know someone is struggling. They may be sick or have suffered a relationship split. If we make the normal inquiry, “How are things going?”, the person will probably give a socially acceptable response such as, “I’m hanging in there,” or “I’m good, thanks.”
That’s why we sometimes need to get creative with our questions. “Hey, I know you’ve been suffering from this illness. Would you mind sharing with me what a good day and what a bad day looks like?”
That’s a much more specific, intentional question than, “How are you feeling?”
As Trevor Hudson wrote, we are inviting someone into a deeper relationship by asking them to share more than the standard fare. They may not choose to, and that’s fine. But most of the time, the more intentional and specific the question, the more vulnerable the conversation.
Practice it on your spouse, your kids, or your best friend. Next time you start to ask, “How’s your day going?” try something like, “You sighed when you walked in the door. Would you mind sharing with me what made you sigh?”
Of course, there’s a prerequisite for intentionally becoming more courageously curious. We need to legitimately care about the people we’re engaging. We need to pay careful attention to what they say, their body language, their tone, and their responses. We need to listen – another characteristic of a deep disciple which we’ll explore here soon.
Curious about Ourselves
We’ve explored the Discipleship Dilemma and Heartview quite a bit here. To become more like Jesus, we deepen our understanding of our hearts and the ideas and desires that power us. Inherent in knowing ourselves is curiosity. But it can be hard to come by.
Rich Villodas noted that theologian Ronald Rolheiser warned, “The air we breathe today is generally not conducive to interiority and depth.” Villodas went on, “We live on the tip of the iceberg, and for various reasons. Many of our days are strategically and subconsciously constructed to avoid looking beneath the surface. We often belong to church communities that reinforce a lack of introspection. We use God to run from God, and we use God to run from ourselves. It’s so easy to do this.”[10]
Look, as someone who’s practicing becoming more courageously curious, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It can be difficult. Villodas noted that Christians want desperately to be known as people formed after God, and yet we’ve often been more formed by people, some in good ways and some in harmful ways.
He notes three areas worth exploring from our past: patterns, trauma, and scripts. Which thought and behavioral patterns are being formed by God, and which are leftovers from other people? What sort of scripts run through our minds and our words that reflect Jesus, and which reflect a parent, a sibling, or a formative adult who may or may not resonate with God?
Asking ourselves questions about our patterns, trauma, and scripts does take a lot of courage, but is often a pathway to healing and freedom.
The Benefits of Curiosity
So yes, being courageously curious about God, others, and ourselves may not be easy. Sometimes it may be painful. However, it yields tremendous blessings and benefits. If it didn’t, Jesus wouldn’t have asked 307 questions in the Gospels.
So perhaps we might try to practice it just once this week. With God, with a close friend. Or with ourselves.
Albert Einstein said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
And, to sum up, Eleanor Roosevelt said, “I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.”[11]
Perhaps God does endow each one of us with such a gift. And perhaps we’ve just misplaced it for a while.
[1] Willard D. (2012). Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (p. 86). NavPress.
[2] Reese, R. & Loane, R. (2012). Deep Mentoring: Guiding Others on Their Leadership Journey, (p. 36). IVP Books.
[3] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Jn 14:15). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.
[4] https://dwillard.org/articles/rethinking-evangelism
[5] https://brentwoodhills.org/event-items/questions-god-asks-us/
[6] https://brentwoodhills.org/event-items/questions-god-asks-us/
[7] https://licc.org.uk/resources/questions-jesus-asked-the-power-of-the-question/
[8] Villodas, R. (2020). The Deeply Formed Life: Five Values to Root Us in the Way of Jesus, (p. 104). Waterbrook Multnomah.
[9] Villodas, R. (2020). The Deeply Formed Life, (p. 104). Waterbrook Multnomah.
[10] Villodas, R. (2020). The Deeply Formed Life, (p. 94). Waterbrook Multnomah.
[11] https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/curiosity-quotes
