Why ask you, when I can ask Google?

 “How many moons does Neptune have?”, “How long does it take to walk around the world?”, “What’s the biggest tree?”, “What’s the smallest tree?”, “How many Lego bricks are there in the world?”, “If you joined all the world’s Lego together – how long would it be?” (chat GPT predicts 32–35 million km end-to-end! – that’s about 850 times around the Earth!) – Welcome to the search history of a dad of a 7-year-old. How did previous generations survive without Google? Seriously!

In this short series, Andy and I have aimed to equip parents and those who live and work with young people with the skills and mindset needed to address the big questions about faith in Jesus: “Is God dead?”, “Aren’t all religions basically the same?”, “Why should I say sorry?” and “Why should I care about others?”

Read more:

Why should I care about others?

Answering your child’s questions: Why should I say sorry?

Answering your child’s questions: Aren’t all religions basically the same?

Answering your child’s questions: Is God dead?

But here’s the thing: in our modern age, much of our questioning has been outsourced to AI and online search engines—capable of spitting out thousands of answers in less than a second. A quick Google of any faith question delivers a cascade of articles, YouTube videos, and bite-sized AI summaries that claim to settle the matter. We’re no longer required to be the fountain of all knowledge. So, what role do we play with young people today?

young people need us more than ever to help them weigh up what they find online

The temptation is to believe that instant information makes the need for adults to explore big questions with young people redundant. After all, why ask a trusted adult when Siri, Alexa, or TikTok can provide the answer in a flash? But the truth is, our young people aren’t just looking for facts—they’re looking for meaning. Technology can supply information, but it can’t provide wisdom. It can answer what but struggles with why. That’s where parents, carers, and mentors have a unique and irreplaceable role.

In fact, young people need us more than ever to help them weigh up what they find online. Misinformation is everywhere, and the sheer volume of competing voices can feel overwhelming. Parents don’t need to have every answer ready; instead, our gift is to model curiosity, humility, and discernment—to show what it looks like to test, trust, and sometimes sit with mystery.

Asking Questions About God

Asking questions about God is a very different kind of search than counting Neptune’s moons or tallying the world’s Lego bricks.

Our common approach tends to ask questions so that we can make the world more bite-sized and manageable.

Our shared modern imagination has been shaped by scientific methods that push us to rationalise everything, to make life and the world calculable, manageable, and predictable. Sociologist Hartmut Rosa argues that this drive for controllability has left the world disenchanted: “The world made manageable and predictable has lost not only its colour and its magic, but also its voice, its meaning” . The world has become dis-enchanted as we seek to understood it in natural, manageable and measurable terms. A quick Google search fits neatly into this framework of reduction, but awe and wonder are stripped away completely.

Our young people don’t just need technically correct information about God; they need encounters that carry meaning

Rosa illustrates this with the example of pointing to the night sky and saying, “Wow, look at the moon tonight,” only to have a friend reply, “What about it? It’s been there the whole time. It’s just a rocky orb, 385,000 kilometres away, littered with craters, without any life. It’s been like that for millions of years, it never changes”. The answer is accurate—but not inspiring. The original invitation wasn’t to analyse the moon, but to share in a moment of wonder. To notice beauty together. To resonate with the mystery of existence.

If God is truly the most beautiful and awe-inspiring subject of our questioning, then any response that reduces him to a neat formula will always fall short. Facts alone can never capture the fullness of who he is. When we approach God—whether in worship and prayer, or in questioning and doubt—we are drawn into something far deeper than information.

Google may provide answers, but you provide relationship. TikTok may give quick takes, but you give time, presence, and love. AI may supply information, but you embody wisdom

To stand before God with our questions is not like searching for answers on a screen; it is more like gazing at the moon on a clear night. We are not just seeking data but opening ourselves to encounter, resonance, and relationship. Our questions become less about solving a puzzle and more about being caught up in the mystery of the one who is both infinitely beyond us and intimately with us.

Our young people don’t just need technically correct information about God; they need encounters that carry meaning. Families and mentors are perfectly placed to make space for this—not as search engines, but as fellow travellers who can wonder aloud, share stories of faith, and resist the temptation to collapse everything into neat answers.

The example of Job

Job comes to God with some of the most profoundly raw and honest questions that the Bible holds about suffering and injustice. But when God speaks, he doesn’t provide a neat, searchable explanation. Instead, God draws Job into awe: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!” (Job 38:4–5).

Algorithms can generate instant summaries, but they can’t model what it feels like to sit in reverent awe

In other words, God doesn’t simply resolve Job’s questions with a bullet-point list. He widens Job’s perspective and invites him to stand before the mystery and beauty of creation—and, more importantly, before the Creator himself. The lesson isn’t that Job’s questions were unworthy or invalid, but that encountering God is about more than acquiring information. Instead, it’s about revelation, relationship, wonder, and humility.

That’s the kind of space our young people are hungry for too. Algorithms can generate instant summaries, but they can’t model what it feels like to sit in reverent awe, or to wrestle with mystery, or to share tears and laughter in the presence of God.

What might this look like?

• Resist the rush to resolve. When a young person asks a big question, it’s okay to pause and say, “That’s a really important question—let’s think about it together.” Sometimes the journey matters more than a tidy conclusion.
• Wonder together. Instead of answering everything with facts, model awe: “Isn’t it amazing how vast space is?” or “I find it incredible that God cares for us even in such a huge universe.”
• Compare voices. If your young person has found something online, read or watch it with them. Ask, “What do you think about this?” or “How does this fit with what we know of Jesus?”
• Share your own faith story. The internet can’t offer the testimony of someone your child loves and trusts. Your story—even with any doubts and uncertainties—carries weight.
• Create rhythms of awe. Whether that’s watching the stars, walking in nature, or lighting a candle to pray together, help them practice noticing God in ways a screen can’t replicate.
• Model humility. Sometimes the most powerful words are, “I don’t know, but I trust God is big enough to handle our questions.”

We might feel that we are competing with an endless stream of voices online—faster, slicker, and more confident than we can ever be. But here’s the good news: you’re not competing. You’re offering something the internet never can. Google may provide answers, but you provide relationship. TikTok may give quick takes, but you give time, presence, and love. AI may supply information, but you embody wisdom.

Young people don’t ultimately need you to be a walking encyclopaedia. They need you to be a safe place to bring their questions, a companion in their wonder, and a guide who helps them see that faith isn’t about having every answer but about learning to trust God in the midst of mystery.