The 3 hardest words to say

As with most 3 1/2 year old's my son is full of questions. Some of them make no sense at all and others make me wonder what my wife has been telling him. The worst of all are the questions that I don't have an answer to. Answering him with "I don't know" is never enough. That usually just sends him into a fit of "but tell me Daddy!"

I've thought about making up answers just to appease him but I can't help but fear that that will do some kind of irreparable damage down the line. So I say the 3 hardest words to say "I don't know". We all fear admitting that we're inadequate in any way. Acknowledging that there are things about which we do not know we fear will lessen our standing with others.

So we make it up. Or we just regurgitate what we have heard someone else saying without forming any real opinion of our own. We see this when discussing politics all the time. We might not truly know anything about gun control or healthcare but we know where our party lines lie so we recite the Facebook post we saw about it. Usually there is little harm there (unless your a Senator perhaps). The worst that usually comes of this is some raised tempers.


But when it comes to our Faith this can become a much more dangerous habit. We debate theology and doctrine without knowing what we are really saying. We quote Pastors and books as if they were undeniable truth. Yet the only real truth is that we don't know.

What power there is in those 3 words. "I don't know". God never commands us to have all the answers. He tells us to seek the truth but if we're pretending we know it all how will we ever be able to find it. Can we begin to admit that "I don't know" and not be afraid to ask the questions.