Pastor Phil McCutchen

The Power of Curiosity

Exodus 3:1-4   Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2  There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3  So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight–why the bush does not burn up.” 4  When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”

The Canadian cultural anthropologist, Arnold Edinborough, once said, “Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly.”  The story of Moses and the burning bush is the story of a man who not only wasn’t killed by curiosity, it made him alive.  Curiosity caused Moses to rediscover his destiny and the destiny of a nation.  His dreams of significance had to have died after going from being the prince of Egypt to being a bedouin shepherd for forty years.  But when he saw a bush burning he was curious and his curiosity led him to check it out.  Now life doesn’t need to provide you a spontaneously combustible plant to teach you the power of curiosity.  I believe the creator brings people, ideas, and things into our view on a regular basis that are intended to attract us, impress us, and communicate the purpose of our lives.

Sometimes at church I watch people walking by other people without being curious enough to go over and see who they are.  I am always pushing books, videos and podcasts, and occasionally I find there’s a polite resistance to being impressed.  Curiosity is not the same as commendation.  Many people will compliment me on my three adult size kids, their seriousness about faith and their commitment to a virtuous path.  I really appreciate those kind words, but a curious person would ask, “can you tell me how that happened?”  And what about language?  I understand the brilliance of being able to communicate truth simply, but what about the incredible adventure of expanding our vocabularies.  There are important spiritual concepts that we will only grasp with new words and phrases.  Dictionary.com is right in the little device you’re always staring at; get curious for goodness sake.  Let your mind be curious about the meaning of a word.

I have zero resentment about any of these examples; I am just concerned that sometimes we lose the capacity to be fascinated.  I am concerned there’s a virus attacking the American soul that is causing us to be unmoved by discovery.  I am convinced that burning bushes line the passage ways of our lives but we don’t always see the value of engaging the brilliance.  One of the great locations of burning bushes is our problems and perplexities.  So often it seems instead of wanting to know why we feel bad, we just want a pill to change our mood.  What if there’s all kinds of beautiful things that God wants to open up for you in responding to the what, why, where, and when of your thorniest issues?  The Great Apostle Paul got a new revelation of Grace after he sought the Lord three times about some mysterious dilemma we only know as Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.”  Our problems aren’t just problems, they’re gold mines of revelation.

John Suk, who happens to be a pastor from Canada, was a seminary professor for a time in Manila Philippines in the expat community and his wife was a marriage counselor.  These expats were diplomats, ambassadors, and government employees from all over the world.  As you would expect in this multicultural situation that brought this culturally diverse group together, they would often pair up: Scandinavians with West Africans, and Filipinos with Syrians, etc.  Naturally some of the cross culturally married couples would end up in the marriage counselor’s office for counseling.  She came up with, what is for me the most surprising common denominator among the couples who resolved their marital problem.  She found the one quality that determined whether these multi-ethnic couples were going to live happily ever after and that was “curiosity.”  A good marriage requires a spouse who is a student of how we are different than them in a winsome way.

Curiosity is what attaches us to others.  Curiosity is what personalizes others to us.  Curiosity is what helps us understand and makes others feel understood.  Curiosity is what what leads us to create a relational map for knowing others and being known.  As the marriage counselor discovered, people with a curious spouse felt loved and supported; while those without, did not.  Curiosity is so underrated.

Because of the illustration I used, this could be a blog about cultural intelligence and that’s a hugely important subject for white Americans like myself right now, huge.  However, I don’t want to only limit the benefits of curiosity to the path forward for overcoming those unintended and subtle forms of racism; let me expand curiosity to include the path for all personal growth.  Curiosity is simply the only way to increase your intelligence and wisdom.  The Bible describes foolishness and a lack of understanding as a killer, so this is a very serious matter.

Every day on social media I see people being outraged about things they didn’t have the curiosity to look into.  Ever see a reporter try to have an intelligent conversation at one of these protest?  No, absolutely not.  These people are emotionally amped up to the point of burning things and turning over things but they can’t even articulate why they’re there.

I know I’ve been a little prickly and pushy with my challenge to be more curious, but holy curiosity is the joyous adventure that will keep us from evil.  The “Lord’s prayer” says, “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.”  Evil makes our lives boring and predictable.  Hateful people become hyper focused on who they hate which disfigures their soul to be disinterested and assumptive.  Drug addicts and sex addicts lives start revolving around the next fix and the next hook up.  People with holy curiosity spend their days exploring the kingdom, the power and the glory of God’s creation in the people, places, and things that constantly amaze them, move them, and deliver them from boredom.  LET’S GO!!!!!