Good Question
“Dan, what has the
Lord been teaching you lately?” That
question, repeatedly asked by a mentor of mine when I was in college, was the
first time I realized the power of a question.
Whenever I sat down with Martin over coffee, inevitably he would ask
some version of the same question: “What
has the Lord been teaching you lately?” It
forced me to stop and think. Had I been
listening to God? If so, what had He
been communicating, and if not, why not?
Since then, I’ve asked other people the question thousands of times. Almost always, it takes surface conversations
much deeper.
It isn’t just this specific question. In general, questions are good things. They open doors. They make a person think. They express interest, and sustain
conversation. They can be provocative, in the best sense of the word. Sometimes I wonder if we are losing the
ability to ask good questions, and if we are, it means we are losing the
ability to have conversation. Like you,
I find myself increasingly listening to people talk at me. Long, long
monologues.
At our Session meeting on Tuesday, our elders and staff
engaged in a simple exercise. They
paired up for ten minute conversations, with the assignment of finding out what
was going on in the other person’s life. The only caveat was that each person
had to ask at least three questions along the way. We talked a bit about how asking questions
might be an important tool for leaders. Then
we opened the scripture to John 5:1-14 to listen in on a conversation Jesus
had. Sure enough, the “hinge” of the
whole story was a question Jesus asked: “Do you want to be healed?”
It turns out that Jesus was very, very adept at asking
questions. Good questions. His questions were often very penetrating ones
that opened further conversation, and sometimes stirred the water. He asked a lot of them. In fact, I ran across a list of “100
Questions That Jesus Asked” in the gospels.
Of course there is some overlap when stories are repeated, but the list
is still quite impressive.
Recently I’ve started using that list for my own morning quiet
times, taking Jesus’ questions and reflecting on how I might respond if He
asked them of me. “Who do you say that I am?”
Or “Why are you afraid?” Or “Do
you believe I can do this?” At the
rate of one per day, it will take me a long time to get through the list. But when I’m done, I will have shared a lot
of rich conversation with the Lord.
Sometimes we call that “prayer.” And
I think that dialogue will raise other questions for me to ask back. So I guess we’ll just keep the conversation
going.
See you soon,
Pastor Dan
