Sunday Oct 02, 2022

Ep 154 A Legacy of Curiosity—A Journey of Faith with Lore Ferguson Wilbert

Writer, thinker, self-named "chronic doubter", Lore Wilbert talks today about how asking questions are not only welcomed by God, but often essential to our journey of faith. Whether you are a staunch believer, never doubting, or more in a messy faith situation right now, you will find comfort, grace—even some answers to your questions—in our podcast conversation today.

Lore Ferguson Wilbert is a writer, thinker, learner, and author of the book, Handle With Care. She writes for She Reads Truth, Christianity Today, and more, as well as her own site, Sayable.net,as well as at LoreWilbert.com. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @lorewilbert. She lives in New York and has a husband named Nate, a puppy named Harper Nelle, and too many books to read in one lifetime. Her wonderful new book is A CURIOUS FAITH: The Questions God Asks, We Ask, and We Wish Someone Would Ask Us.

I love her latest book, A CURIOUS FAITH: The Questions God Asks, We Ask, and We Wish Someone Would Ask Us. I thought I'd get this book for some friends, but the more I read it, I knew it was meant for me. Funny how the Lord does that. (My friends will still get a copy and you should, too.)

Lore says this about herself:

My life is small and simple. Grace is the marked measure of all things in me. God is the ultimate Creator and He’s crafted all things for His glory and my good. I learn this, albeit slowly at times.

I am a Christian for whom doubt has been a near constant thread. I am not funny or vivacious or the life of the party. I am the one who hangs out on the margins, the one who sounds slightly, maybe impressive until you meet me, the one people don’t recognize when they see me. And it has taken me nearly 40 years to finally be okay with that.

I have lived in ten states. Nowhere is quite home. The writer of Hebrews quotes the Lord as saying, “They’ll never get where they’re going, never able to sit down and rest.” A favorite author, Wendell Berry, says in one poem, “We must arrive at the ground beneath our feet,” and in another, “at peace, and in place.” I have done neither, not completely. I am perpetually homesick and I wonder if God did that to me on purpose, so I would never feel too much at home on this earth.

Some gems from Lore:

The Gospel is much more accessible and simple than we could ever imagine, and much more complex and majestic than we could ever imagine.
One of the most difficult parts of faith is getting honest about what we really want from God.
God is not interested in followers with all the right answers or even the right questions. He wants us to ask the quesitons, whatever we want, to lead us right to the locus of his love.
The Bible is a permission slip from God to ask questions.
Living my questions led me to more surety and stability.