Using Questions in Journal Writing

Questions are a powerful tool for spiritual growth and practices. I have found writing out the questions that are stirring in my heart in my journal has helped me grow, find direction and sometimes even healing in staying with the unknowns.

The very act of finding the words to describe my questions brings clarity and often peace. Articulating these questions is helpful and at times I discover I am asking the wrong question. I sit quietly, holding these questions lightly and open up to God for his light and insight.

We are in times of uncertainty and many unknowns. Our human instinct is to rush to finding answers out of fear and insecurity. Thinking of our crazy and chaotic reality reminded me of one of my favorite quotes. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote this in his book, Letters to a Young Poet:

“I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

And from Macrina Wiederkehr:

“It seems to me Lord that we search much too desperately for answers, when a good question holds as much grace as an answer. Jesus, you are the Great Questioner. Keep our questions alive, that we may always be seekers rather than settlers. Guard us well from the sin of settling in with our answers hugged to our breasts. Make of us a wondering, far-sighted, questioning, restless people And give us the feet of pilgrims on this journey unfinished.”  

And one more:

“The one who asks questions doesn’t lose his way.” African Proverb

Here are a few questions I have identified in my journal so far in 2026:

• How do I live loving You with wild abandonment and an undivided heart?
• What is mine to do?
• What are You calling me to do?
• What am I clinging to that blocks me from You or holds me back?
• What new thing(s) am I to learn this year? What did I learn today?
• What assumptions have I left unquestioned?
• Deep down, what do I want and/or what is bothering me? 
• What am I most grateful for? What am I the least grateful for?  
• What has worked for me before and how can I bring more of that into my life now?
• What is no longer working?

I believe God loves questions. He planted inside each of us a curiosity and he graciously is willing to receive our questions. He even is generous enough to hear some of the same questions over and over and over again. I ask questions all the time when talking with God. Of course I don’t always wait for his answer but that is another story.

Listing questions like these in my journal and bringing them into my prayers helps me pay attention to how the Spirit is shaping me, leading me, being with me.  Listening to the questions within us  is a valuable tool to help us pay attention to life, to Life

“Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions.” Earl Gray Stevens

What questions are you holding right now?   How have questions formed your faith?