Courage

Sigmund Brouwer wrote the book Who Made the Moon* with a few purposes in mind. One stated purpose is found at location 1394 of the Kindle version of the book:

Many scientists do, . . . . serve in their churches as well as in their laboratories . . . . I hope this book makes their lives easier as more believers learn how faith and science can find harmony in explaining our origins.

But a greater pupose of the book is found in how he introduces the book to his two daughters, Olivia and Savannah. He tells them,

Your questions about where the moon, the dinosaurs, and people came from are good, important questions. Your curiosity is one of the special things about you. I'm proud of you for wanting to know and understand God's world better. Only a really courageous person asks the big questions and dares to seek honest answers. I'm proud of you for being so brave, and I'm glad that you told me about your questions. These big questions are ones that people throughout history have been asking. (Loc 19)

When Brouwer wrote this book his daughters were not yet old enough to read it but he wrote it to encourage them to keep on asking questions. It struck me that there are not enough people asking these big questions. Perhaps we have tired of the arguments that are sometimes generated, particularly in church circles. Perhaps we feel we don't have sufficient information to weigh the evidence. Perhaps we feel that we just don't have the mental strength to deal with the honest answers.

But courageous questions and honest answers are the only way that humans have made forward progress. Where would we be today if William Wilberforce had not questioned the practise of slavery? What would have happened if people like Thomas Edison had not asked questions about how we might develop safer ways to light our homes?

What is your level of curiosity? What questions are you asking today? What questions are your children asking? Are you seeking with them to find truly honest answers? Or are you giving them the answers you have always heard without checking to see if those answers still make sense? Are we encouraging our children to keep on asking good questions or do we wish that they would just trust others with the answers that have been given so that we can go back to watching "Dancing With The Stars?" It is a truly human trait to continue to ask questions throughout our lives. I encourage you to keep learning and asking more and more questions.


*Brouwer, Sigmund. Who Made the Moon? Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008.