Norman — Author Frederick Buechner says that Lent is a season for asking questions. “During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.” Asking questions, being inquisitive, seeking and striving for wisdom are lauded as important practices of the spiritual journey. In fact, one writer has said that we are a generation of seekers.
And don’t get me wrong; I’m all for asking questions and seeking for the wisdom of the spiritual path. But asking and seeking can become practices that begin with me, and perhaps, don’t get much beyond me. Seeking becomes asking the questions that I think are important to ask and being inquisitive about what is of interest and fascination to me.
Let me offer another image for this year’s Lenten journey. Instead of being a seeker, what would it be like to see experience ourselves as being sought and pursued by a God who yearns for and desires us? Instead of asking questions of ourselves, what would it be like to let God ask questions of us? We need look no further than the gospels to hear questions that we can spend a lifetime answering and find ourselves transformed as we do so: What do you want me to do? Do you want to be well? What are you looking for? Who do you say that I am?
In his spiritual classic “A Testament of Devotion,” Thomas Kelly says that “in this humanistic age, we suppose man is the initiator and God is the responder. But the Living Christ within us is the initiators and we are the responder. God the Lover, the accuser, the revealer of light and darkness presses within us … And all our apparent initiative is already a response, a testimonial to His secret presence and working within us.” I am coming to see that every thought, every image, every wondering, every idea, even every breath are not generated from my identity as a seeker. Instead they come in response to this God who seeks after me with earnest desire, even if I’m aware of that seeking or not.
So let me offer you a different Lenten challenge. Pick a day, or any period of time, and instead of seeing yourself as a seeker of God, live that period of time as one who is being sought by God. Instead of generating questions to ask of God and the world, listen for the questions that God and the world asks of you.
