Asking the Wrong Question, But Getting the Right Answer
Sometimes, the hardest truth to hear is the one that changes us the most.
In July, during my annual physical, I asked my doctor if there was a different blood pressure medication I could try. My numbers weren’t where I wanted them to be, I was getting hypertension headaches and I figured there had to be a better pill out there, something that would fix the problem without requiring much from me. My doctor smiled and said, “You’re already on the right medication. The issue isn’t the medicine, it’s the lifestyle. You need to eat better and exercise more.”
That was not the answer I wanted. I was hoping for something easier, something that would allow me to stay comfortable and unchanged. But over time, I realized it was exactly the answer I needed. No pill could replace the discipline of daily movement and a healthier diet. The path to real health wasn’t about finding an easy fix; it was about committing to live differently.
In Luke 20:27–28, the Sadducees come to Jesus with a tricky question about the resurrection. They didn’t even believe in resurrection, yet they asked, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.” They spun an elaborate hypothetical, seven brothers and one wife, and asked whose wife she would be in the resurrection.
They weren’t asking because they wanted to understand eternal life; they were asking to trap Jesus. They were asking the wrong question. But Jesus, in His grace, gave them the right answer. He reminded them that God is “not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive.”
Like the Sadducees, we often come to God asking for quick fixes or easy answers. We want God to adjust the situation instead of adjusting us. We want solutions that fit our comfort zones, not transformations that call us out of them.
But Jesus doesn’t settle for surface-level questions. He digs deeper. He answers the question beneath the question, the one that reveals what’s really going on in our hearts. Just as my doctor didn’t give me a new prescription but invited me into a new way of living, Jesus invites us into the life that truly is life, a life made new by the power of the resurrection.
Sometimes the right answer isn’t the one we want, but the one that leads to real change.
In God’s Grip,
Pastor Chuck Church
Prayer:
Lord, help me to stop asking questions that keep me comfortable and start asking questions that open me to Your transforming grace. When Your answers challenge me, give me the courage to respond with obedience and trust. Amen.
