There’s something powerful about good questions—the kind that linger, that hold space for something surprising to be born. The kind that leaves us thoughtfully unsettled, uncertain enough to make room for something deeper to emerge.
Years ago, when my daughter was about six, she asked me one night, “If God made everything, who made God?” I fumbled my way through some theological explanation. Her question wasn’t just a child’s innocent curiosity—it was the same deep wondering that has echoed through centuries of philosophers, theologians, and everyday humans alike.
There’s something sacred about genuine questions. They’re like doors cracked open, inviting mystery into spaces where certainty used to comfortably reside.
They’re the raw materials for growth, the birthplace of transformation.
Nicodemus understood this sacred uncertainty.
When he approached Jesus under cover of darkness, he didn’t begin with tidy theology or confident assertions. Instead, he came with an implied question, wrapped carefully in respectful observation: “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God…” He didn’t say it explicitly, but underneath those cautious words pulsed the question we all recognize: “Who are you, really?”
Jesus’s reply about needing to be born again didn’t clarify—it deepened the mystery.
And Nicodemus didn’t retreat. Instead, he leaned in, risking embarrassment, revealing his confusion openly: “How can someone be born when they are old?
Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb!”
We often rush past Nicodemus’s confusion, eager to reach Jesus’s profound teachings about the Spirit. But today, I want to pause in that uncertainty. There’s beauty in Nicodemus’s vulnerability, his willingness to ask the uncomfortable question. Here’s a man accustomed to being the one who answers spiritual puzzles, not the one who admits he’s puzzled. Yet here he is—bewildered, honest, vulnerable.
In a culture that prizes certainty—then and now—Nicodemus chose authenticity over appearing wise.
He risked standing in front of mystery without hiding behind his carefully constructed knowledge. He allowed his questions, not his answers, to lead him closer to truth.
His discomfort—the nagging sense that Jesus disrupted everything he thought he knew—wasn’t something to avoid. It was the very place where something new could begin.
I wonder how often I’ve avoided voicing my true questions because it felt safer to cling to certainty. In our divided world, admitting uncertainty feels dangerous. We dig in, double down on what we “know,” and fear the vulnerability of simply saying, “I don’t have it figured out yet.”
Yet, ironically, it’s precisely our questions—not our airtight answers—that lead us closer to God. Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Nicodemus lived this truth. When his old answers couldn’t make sense of his encounter with Jesus, he allowed himself to be changed instead.
Because Nicodemus risked uncertainty, we received one of Jesus’s most profound teachings: “For God so loved the world…” (maybe you remember it – John 3:16).
His honest confusion opened the way for truth to be revealed. His questions led directly to life—not just information, but transformation.
I think this might be the invitation for us, too: to let ourselves be unsettled by questions, trusting that doubt doesn’t distance us from God but draws us closer.
Maybe our faith isn’t defined by how confidently we answer, but by how faithfully we carry our questions. Maybe the bravest thing we can do is to admit that sometimes we just don’t know, trusting that our questions will eventually lead us exactly where we need to be—closer to the very heart of God.
Reflection:
What question about faith or God have you been afraid to voice?
What might happen if you let yourself simply hold that question, trusting God to meet you in your uncertainty?
Prayer:
God of mystery, thank you for Nicodemus, whose honesty reminds me that questions are sacred pathways rather than stumbling blocks. Help me embrace my uncertainties with courage and curiosity, trusting that you dwell not only in answers but especially in the open, holy spaces created by our deepest questions. Amen.