Questions

Who Invented Dental Floss

/ mustardpatch / Leave a comment

I heard the comment once that conversations never end in ”I don’t know” anymore. Inevitably someone will whip out their cell phone and ask Siri, and the answer magically will appear.

This was certainly the case for me the other night when I was – you guessed it – flossing my teeth. Perhaps you’ve never wondered about the invention of dental floss before, but if you’re like me, you’re wondering now.

I grew up on the cusp of the internet era. I still remember card catalogs and microfiche machines and giant reference books in the stacks. A question like “Who invented dental floss?” was not something that just anyone could know. You would need to do research. Find an expert who specialized in the history of dentistry, read a dental history textbook, or visit a museum of dental history.

Today, any question I can dream up has an answer sitting in my hip pocket.

Well, almost any question. Ask Siri what the meaning of life is, and she’ll give you one of several snarky answers ranging from “42” to “I don’t know, but I think there’s an app for that.”

Depending on your question, an internet search may not be the best way to find your answer.

Perhaps as this new year has its beginning, you are also looking for a fresh start. An internet search can point you to a lot of excellent resources, ranging from organizing your closets to inspirational guidance, but if you’re looking for a deeper new beginning, you need to access a deeper source.

The Bible tells the story of Nicodemus, a scholarly man who, as a member of the Jewish ruling council, would have had every resource of that day at his fingertips. Yet despite all that access, the knowledge equivalent of today’s internet search engines, he apparently still had a question that remained unanswered. He came at night, perhaps afraid of public ridicule or worse. But he came. To ask the deeper Source a question.

Jesus talked to Nicodemus about new birth, a more radical new beginning than Nicodemus could even fathom. But it was a new birth that was available to Nicodemus, and it is available to each one of us still today. God promises that when we seek Him earnestly, He will be found by us. (See John 3:1-21 and Deuteronomy 4:29)

What are you searching for?

We cannot talk to Jesus face to face, but I have found that when I have an earnest question on my heart and ask Him to guide me, then He brings resources across my path that point me to the truth. It could be a piece of scripture that jumps out at me, a sermon crafted just for me, a song lyric, even an internet search result. Wherever they come from, those words resonate around the question in my heart in such a way that I know that regardless of the source, there is a deeper Source responding to me.

The answers we seek are not reserved for the experts, for the elite, or for those who have been granted access. Answers are available to me. And to you. And to everyone who asks.

Whatever new beginning you may be seeking, whatever question you may be asking, hold it in your heart and ask God to guide you to the answer. He has a way of curating what you need more powerfully than any search engine I’ve ever seen. Go ahead and ask.

And while you’re waiting for your answer, you can read about the history of dental floss here. Or here. Or…

There is so much information at your fingertips, my friends. Keep searching.

This post was original written for inspireafire.com. I hope you enjoyed!

Questions from God and the Devil, Part 1

/ mustardpatch / Leave a comment

I am a big fan of questions.

Except for when I’m not.

What I mean is that most of the time, questions serve me well. They allow me to engage empathically with others, they help me understand different viewpoints, and they teach me diligence in my thoughts and actions.

But sometimes the questions get out of control. Sometimes they keep me awake at night replaying conversations or inciting possible scenarios. Sometimes their incessant whirling brings such doubt and confusion that I could easily be led away to despair.

Then, questions are no longer my friend. Perhaps this has also happened to you.

The question that arose about all these questions (ironic, I know), is this: How can I tell if a question is good for me to think about or if it is one I should avoid?

I have three answers.

The first answer comes in even recognizing that there are some questions that are not helpful, and that we can choose to dwell or not dwell on a particular thought. The Bible tells us that we should take every thought captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5) That means we can think about what we are thinking about, and ask God for guidance in discerning what thought paths we should pursue. As simple as it sounds, pausing for a moment of metacognition – thinking about what we’re thinking about – can reframe our thought paths.

When I started to do this, I was shocked at the thoughts that were playing through my mind. The chatter was so familiar and incessant that I didn’t realize some of the patterns I was getting stuck on. I couldn’t even begin to tell if a question was good for me to dwell on until I first became aware of my thoughts and what questions were already there. That’s step one.

The second way we discern questions worth thinking about is through the fruit of the question. In other words, does dwelling on a particular question bring clarity and peace or confusion and despair?

This isn’t always black and white. Our thoughts are complex and we can’t always consider a single question and leap immediately to either clarity or confusion. Sometimes we have to walk through uncertainty as we seek our answers. Sometimes questions raise emotional pain that we do need to walk through and not avoid. But there is a different feeling to wrestling with doubt, fear, or sadness while seeking clarity versus the feeling we have when we are churning on a question that repeatedly plunges us into darkness. When dwelling too long on a particular question produces only increased anxiety, set it aside. It may be that the time is not quite right to consider those thoughts. We can ask God to show us when the time is right. He will bring resources across our path to guide us.

The problem with using the fruit of the question as our identifier is by the time we realize a particular question is leading us in a bad direction, we are already well down the path. While it’s a little helpful to recognize after the fact – perhaps we can at least not go any further! – it would be even better if we could distinguish a priori whether a particular question is a friend or foe.

I think there are ways we can. Once we have identified a detrimental question by its fruit, we can be cautious of that question in the future. When we recognize it creeping back into our thoughts, we can displace it with something else.

Steps one and two can lead to this preemptive third step: recognize the detrimental questions at their onset.

Additionally, and importantly, we also identify detrimental questions at their onset by recognizing the spiritual component to our thoughts. There are questions God asks us that we should spend time thinking about. Conversely, there are questions from the devil, or our own wandering mind, that we should avoid. Knowing which type of question is knocking at the door of our thoughts can help us identify whether it is a friend or foe.

The outstanding question, of course, is this: What are the questions God asks us, and what are the questions that come from the devil or our own wandering mind?

This, my friends, is a question worth pursuing.

So I am embarking on a Bible study to see what I can learn. The good news is that since the spiritual patterns of thought that began at the beginning are the ones still with us today, we can learn a lot by studying the questions in scripture. There is nothing new under the sun, Ecclesiastes tells us.

In some upcoming posts, I’ll share what I am discovering. We’ll start with the very first question the devil asked… and the counter question from Jesus millennia later. Do you know what it is?