Stay Curious

Hello Friends, 

I am solidly middle-aged — halfway to 88, technically. And I'm at that strange stretch of middle age where some of my peers are attending their kids' high school graduations while others are attending their kids' kindergarten graduations. I'm also now older than my father-in-law was when I married his daughter, yet I'm still preparing my own son for life as a fifth grader. 

The music of my childhood has been relegated to the "classic hip hop" station, and the styles I wore in high school have come full circle. Yet I have decades left until retirement, and a shrinking-but-still-present segment of the world insists on telling me, "But you're still young." That, I guess, is the life of a geriatric millennial.

This is also the season of life when I've begun goal-setting for the second half. And those goals run deeper than the financial or material. I find myself asking who I want to be at certain milestone ages, and what character qualities I need to keep and develop between now and then. At the top of that list is this: stay curious.

What I love about my son is how many questions he asks. There is so much he doesn't know, and he isn't ashamed to admit it. And what I love about many of the senior saints around me is that they haven't lost that same sincere inquisitiveness about the world. They aren't afraid to ask about anything — no matter who stands in front of them.

Here's what I know about a good question, and why curiosity has stayed so important to me:

Questions instill humility. When you force yourself to ask questions, you implicitly admit you don't know it all. That humility becomes the foundation for growing wisdom. If you need an example, look at how many questions Jesus asked the people He met — particularly those who were far from God.

Questions can lead to compassion. Why? Because questions draw out stories from others. Those stories help paint the picture of the "why" beneath the actions and personalities of the people we know — and the ones we don't know yet. Whether or not you agree with the path their story has taken, real understanding can grow into compassion.

Questions show people you're interested in them. Many people I know, especially as we grow older, are looking for an audience more than a conversation — and it shows. Even their questions are often just a setup for a soapbox or a sermon. But genuine question-asking shows others you're interested in the real them — not your assumption of who they are, but where they actually are and what got them there. 

Good question-askers grow their circle of influence rather than shrink it. Contrary to what many think, it's the question — not the soapbox — that leads to greater influence. A question is an open door to shared conversation, one that can reach places a room full of your definitive takes on life never could.

So will you, like me, keep growing in curiosity about the world around you? It doesn't have to lead to approval of everything — but it can keep your perspective fresh, your compassion and humility high, and your circles wide. Using Jesus as our model, questions will help us grow in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man (Luke 2:52).

Cris Buck

Executive Pastor