‘What if?’ Questions Are Not All Bad

I like to ask myself ‘What if?’ questions. A lot of the time, these ‘What if?’ questions stem from anxiety. What if one of my kids gets seriously injured? What if my thyroid becomes resistant to medication and I have to have surgery? What if a tornado comes and destroys our nice, new house? These are obviously silly questions to ask myself. The answer to all of them is that, no matter what happens, God will take care of us. He is sovereign, he is good, and he protects and provides for his people. My salvation in Jesus and hope of eternal life will never be shaken. God holds me with a tight fist, regardless of what may come in this life. I like what Ellie Holcomb says in her song “My Portion and My Strength”: “Even when I lose my grip, you won’t let go.”

Asking ‘What if?’ questions about negative things happening is, of course, a negative thing. I could sum up the ‘What if?’ questions I asked in the previous paragraph like this: What if every terrible thing I can imagine happening, happens? We would suddenly live in a very scary world, filled with sudden catastrophes, diseases that don’t respond to any medical intervention, and children doing exacty what it is I don’t want them to do. Wait a minute. I’m fairly certain that’s the kind of world we live in already. Maybe my ‘What if?’ questions don’t wander far enough into the future. Maybe my ‘What if?’ questions aren’t specific enough.

What if Jesus returns tomorrow? This can be a very helpful ‘What if?’ question to ask oneself. A question like this spurs me on to continue living a life that honors God. If I’m stubbornly hanging onto a specific sin, a question like this can help me let that sin go. I’d like to be ready when Jesus returns. In Matthew 25, after Jesus tells the Parable of the Ten Virigins, he says, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (v. 13). What if Jesus returns tomorrow? can also be a very comforting question, especially considering the world is the way I described above. When Jesus returns, evil will be over and done forever: no more tsunamis, sickness, and broken families. Revelation 7:17 says, “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” I often wonder about eternity. What if I get to swim with a whale shark, or ride on a dinosaur, or sing praises to God forever in a choir composed of all the saints? Thoughts like this fill me with awe and expectation. I can’t wait to see what the world is like when Jesus makes everything new. And God will be there, shining so brightly we won’t need the light from the sun (Revelation 21:23, 22:5). What a lovely, humbling thought.

What is creativity if not asking ‘What if?’ questions? What if I use a C7 chord instead of a plain old C chord? That 7 chord can give my song a whole new sound. I can turn a straightforward song into something that has a slightly jazzy vibe. What if my lyrics are a bit sad? C major might sound too cheerful. The relative minor of C major, A minor, would be the better fit, of course. Most of the interesting chord progressions in my songs come from me wondering, “What if I use this chord instead of that one?” You can apply the same idea to woodworking, or painting, or even coloring in a coloring book. What if I use walnut instead of pine? What if I paint the sky with shades of pink, purple, and orange instead of shades of blue? What if I give Spider-man a suit of black and pink instead of a suit of red and blue? Everything suddenly changes, and something new is born.

And what is science without asking ‘What if?’ questions? One time, when I used to teach with Classical Conversations, we set up an experiment in which we studied how the amount of water in a glass affected the pitch when you struck the glass. We had eight glass bottles, all filled with increasing amounts of water. I struck the seventh bottle in line, with the second most amount of water, and then struck the eighth bottle in line, with the most amount of water. The eighth bottle should have had the deepest pitch, but it didn’t–the seventh bottle did. At this point, I asked myself (and the class) “Why?” And then I asked, “What if the eighth bottle is a slightly different type of bottle than the other seven?” We inspected the bottles, and sure enough, the eighth bottle’s neck was in a slightly different spot. Well, “What if we switched the bottles?” We did, and now we had our pitches in order. Science experiment solved.

I hope you’re beginning to see that ‘What if?’ questions are not all bad. In fact, they can lead to comfort in Jesus, creativity in our work, and curiousity about the world God made. This is great news for someone with anxiety. Rather than trying to eradicate ‘What if?’ questions, we can redirect them instead. We can use them to help ourselves instead of using them to drive ourselves nuts. When Ruthie was a newborn, I used to ask Brian things like “What if Ruthie never sleeps through the night?” He would usually respond by saying, “What if she sleeps all the way through the night tonight?” Brian took my fearful ‘What if?’ question and applied it to something good. We can do the same in our daily activities. And remember: God is good, all the time, and we can trust him with our ‘What if?’ questions–the positive ones that lead to fun discoveries, the negative ones that stem from fear, and all the ones in between.

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I like to read Doug Wilson’s blog from time to time. After I read one of his articles, I wrote him a letter, and he responded on his website. Here’s a link to the conversation.