In March of this year my latest book, The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life released. This is a collection of what I believe are the most important quotes from it – the ones that give the clearest sense of the tone, purpose, style, and message.
Introduction
Binary thinking takes the grays of the world and insists they are either black or white.
Our uncuriosity settles for flannel graph depictions of God instead of relentlessly and eagerly seeking to know Him.
Curiosity is more than a mere trait. It is a discipline, a skill, a habit – one that will expand your life in magnificent, if subtle, ways.
Chapter 1
The wonder and merriment and raw enthusiasm kids bring to otherwise mundane experiences reveal the spirit Jesus praises. This is child-likeness, not childishness.
Maturity means growing out of those aspects of childhood that are selfish, unaware of others and the world, an excuse for sin.
Healthy maturity is that which knows when and how to be childlike.
Imagination guides and shapes our use of information.
With curiosity unpredictability becomes opportunity.
Chapter 2
Truth is anything that is from God and reflects God in some way.
Common grace doesn’t save, but it does summon.
In the Garden of Eden curiosity went off the rails.
Adam and Eve broke creation because they stepped outside their vocation. Instead of seeking to reflect God, they sought to be Him.
Godly curiosity keeps us from becoming simplistic legalists who just label everything as either good or bad.
Chapter 3
We are real life hobbits, seeking peaceful lives centered on daily needs, basic comforts, a little gossip and some good parties.
Curiosity is a discipline, a habit, a skill set. We know this because we lose it.
Education is about perspective much more than it as about mastering subjects.
Life is not lived by choosing from options A through D and passing a standardized test.
Curiosity combined with courage presses in and digs deeper in relationship.
Curiosity enlarges God in our minds, or rather helps us see his largeness and his largesse, His closeness and His love, His plan and His promise.
When we lack curiosity our world shrinks to the size of our waking hours.
Curiosity builds empathy instead of apathy and antipathy.
Curiosity isn’t a quick fix. It is more like a diet or a lifestyle.
Loving curiosity seeks the good of others.
If curiosity is not increasing our joy and capacity for enjoyment then something is amiss.
Chapter 4
No knowledge matters if we cannot answer this simple question about it. So what?
Knowledge is as good as what we can do with it and what it does to us.
If you’re a follower of Jesus there’s no place for a sense of superiority.
Curiosity is a hunger to know more truth so that we can show people more truth so that our world will see more of God.
Chapter 5
Without curiosity we become prejudiced and on a trajectory toward bigotry.
Curiosity knows it doesn’t know even if it doesn’t know what it doesn’t know, and it sets out to learn.
I do not think there is a single medium in the world that so effectively shares information, opens new worlds, and ignites the imagination as books.
Fiction can be truer than facts. A good novel reveals the real in a way an essay or a biography usually fails to do.
So much of nature seems to exist for this reason – because God simply took pleasure in making it and watching it be.
Curious people create more, find better solutions to problems, overcome challenges, meet needs that arise, make connections, and prepare better for the future.
Our curiosity is for a purpose – to honor the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and minds and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Chapter 6
You do not need to find the entry to curiosity. There are millions, so you just need to find the one closest to you.
Noticing is hard work.
Noticing is a muscle and the more we do it the stronger it gets.
Who are you? Who are you becoming? Active curiosity will help you find the answer.
Chapter 7
Curiosity is a primary tool for fulfilling the mission of Christ. Without it we are distant from and clueless about those who need Jesus most.
Being open minded does not mean letting the cage of the brain open so all the birds of thought can escape.
Open-mindedness, at its best, is humility and grace blended with curiosity – but not without conviction.
Scripture gives me security in my curiosity.
What we see from Jesus, throughout all of His life, is the balance of conviction and curiosity.
Chapter 8
Skepticism is doubt with attitude.
There are times when skepticism is beneficial because the world is full of things toward which we should not be trusting.
Curiosity can be skeptical, but a skeptic will have a nearly impossible time maintaining curiosity.
Believing and hoping all things does not mean being gullible. It does not mean ignoring sin or injustice or wrong doing of any kind.
We are to have faith in God and love humanity, not have faith in humanity.
If asking questions is forbidden most people stop thinking altogether.
The very nature of God should spur endless questions since he is so much greater than our understanding.
Curiosity can’t exist without questions and neither can faith.
As Christians we have put our faith in an endless supply of wonderment and bafflement.
Chapter 9
We have an almost immeasurable capacity to take right beliefs and turn them into no actions.
Empathy is impossible without curiosity.
Curiosity turns us outward, away from selfishness.
There are no experts any more, despite what people’s social media profiles say.
Curiosity seeks to learn all it can and then partner with those who know what we don’t.
God is not a mono-cultural God.
We shape God in our mind by our story and try our best to fit Him to our world. But He made the world and is fit to nowhere.
Curiosity is humble because it sees its own limitations and the bigness of God.
Chapter 10
Even a meaningful eight decades mean little when compared to eternity.
What you are doing, if done for God’s glory and in pursuit of His truth, will carry into heaven!
In the next life we will live in the presence of God unhindered and unveiled. This is why heaven won’t get boring.
Hell is real, and it is full of the least curious. It is full of those who determined their own truth instead of seeking God’s.
We, in a very real way, bring heaven to bear here through godly curiosity.
Chapter 11
Curiosity doesn’t have a recipe. It’s not like baking cookies.
We must assume that God did not make a boring world.
Do not assume anyone or anything has nothing to offer you. If God made it then it has value.
Proud people are embarrassed to ask questions and to look vulnerable. Pride kills curiosity quicker than anything.
Questions are the currency of curiosity. But unlike other currency there is no withdrawal limit and they multiply themselves. Spend liberally.
Curiosity cannot come to a stop or it will die. It either progresses or diminishes.
Curiosity is about God and for God.