When Faith Takes Off Its Mask

• “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” - Mark 10:17

• “How can someone be born [again] when they are old?” - John 3:9

• “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my sibling who sins against me?” - Matthew 18:21

• “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” - Matt. 9:14

People ask Jesus questions all the time. It’s normal to have questions, it’s how we learn and grow. Yet so many of us have gotten the message that questions are dangerous to ask, that they signal a lack of faith or of spiritual maturity. Perhaps they even mark us as “spiritually rebellious"!

Read the short list above again. What would you add to it? Big questions you’ve been holding on to for a while, smaller questions just for today or for this week… Jesus welcomes all of them.

Perhaps you’d like to pray this beautiful prayer and listen for a few moments to see what God brings up for you from these words.

“… Liberate us from the tyranny of spiritual certainty. Remind us that doubt is not a threat to faith; it is faith that has finally taken off its mask. Help us locate what of the divine feels clear and true to us. And help us to become honest about those things that will always remain a sacred question. Hold us close to you as we diverge from the path laid out by others, that we might find you in the unknown of the tall grass, the reeds, and even the wilderness—at home with mystery in your divine labyrinth. May it be so.”

― Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human