Don’t Be Afraid to Ask

And he cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” 1 Kings 17:20

Years ago, while still quite early in my medical career, I was working in the Emergency Room when I met an elderly patient with a fracture of the left shoulder. I was 90% sure that this fracture healed well with nothing but a simple sling, but the family seemed skeptical of my treatment plan. Are you sure? Wanting to get it right, I excused myself from the room and made the mistake of telling the family that I was going to go look up the appropriate treatment. Any confidence they had in my care evaporated immediately. It didn’t matter if I brought the textbook to them at that point, showing them the recommended treatment. They wanted a doctor who knew what he was doing, and I was not that doctor.

Nearly 25 years into my career, I still look things up. I cannot know everything – no one does – and so, I still look stuff up. What I do differently now though, is that I find far more discreet ways of doing it. If I need to leave the patient room, for instance, I don’t announce that I’m going to do some quick reading. Patients look to me for answers and they want to know that I have them. They don’t want to see behind the curtain, discovering that even doctors must ask questions sometimes. For the good of the patient though, I must do so.

Don’t be afraid to ask God. That’s the lesson of today’s passage. In the story, Elijah was staying with the widow of Zarephath when her son died suddenly, prompting the widow to lash out at Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son (1 Kings 17:18!” As God’s prophet, the widow expected Elijah to have the answer. He did not. So, Elijah discreetly removed himself from the widow’s presence and cried to God on her behalf. Why God?

 Sometimes, we see it as faithless to question God. In asking God though, at least we are looking to him and at him. I think the faithless thing would be to simply not ask God at all, leaving him out of our thoughts. We’re not promised an answer but if we truly seek God, we’ll find that which we need, even if it’s not exactly what we want. Don’t be afraid to ask God.