The Question Never Asked

“‘Come now, and let us reason together,’
Says the Lord,
‘Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.’”
- Isaiah 1:18

We all struggle with knowing the heart of Christ. We struggle with understanding His will for our life. We desperately want to hear His voice, and yet often feel we walk in silence. We often default to the position that He is just not speaking into our lives. But I believe that is wrong.

I believe the Lord is speaking into our lives every moment of every day. He is standing at the door, longing to sit down for a conversation. He speaks to me through His word, nature, other people, books, movies, circumstances and all kinds of things. Yes, sometimes the message is, “What are you doing? Get up and leave!” But, if we listen, and bring what we receive into alignment with God’s word, I believe we will find He is always speaking. Yet, we are rarely listening.

God called Isaiah to be a prophet and take His words to the people of Israel in hopes they might listen. In the very first vision Isaiah receives, the Lord says, “Come now, and let us reason together.” And there is the crux of the issue. We must come to the Lord. Not just to halfheartedly listen to what He might desire to say, but to reason together with Him. To contemplate, question, search, process and apply what He is speaking into our lives.

Many times I have had people make statements about how wonderful it would have been to be alive when Christ walked the earth to ask Him a question. However, we (us as a people) weren’t any better at listening then than we are now. Half of the time the disciples didn’t even understand what Jesus was saying, because they didn’t have the Holy Spirit yet.

An interesting note on this revolves around who asked questions during that period. Do you realize Jesus asked approximately 307 distinct questions recorded in the four gospels? Yet, the gospels only account for 183 questions being asked of Jesus. I don’t want to read too much into that statistic, but it definitely shows He came to reason with us more than we come to reason with Him.

And I think the same is true today. We often walk in ignorance because we fail to go to the Lord and reason with Him. We are too busy. We have other pressing matters. Sometimes we are just haunted by our past: shame, guilt, failure, etc.

I challenge you this week to read 2 Peter 1:2-8. It details how we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. And it concludes with verse 9 saying, “For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.”

The call in Isaiah still stands for us today. If you desire to experience the Lord speaking in your life, He says, “Come now, and let us reason together!” We want the answers, but are we willing to go to the Lord with the questions? Our hearts will never be open to the answer of a question never asked. So, ask! And listen!

© 2026 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.