Asking the Right Questions

Mike Hosey, An Elder

If you want to have any degree of success in life, you must, at the very least, be able to ask the right questions.  It is, after all, the right questions that help us to understand the world around us.  For instance, you will never be able to know why the sky is blue, unless you ask the question, "why is the sky blue?" The answer to that question, of course, will lead to many, many other questions, which will lead you into a deeper understanding of why the sky is blue, which may in turn lead to a better understanding of light, refraction, and a whole bunch of other stuff about your world. Obviously though, unless they're nerds like me, most people don't care why the sky is blue.  But most people do want to know why their boss wants things a certain way, or why their employees keep making the same mistake, or why their spouse likes this or that. Asking the right questions about the people in our lives absolutely impacts our relationships with those people. When things are wrong, the right questions get us past the symptoms, and take us directly to the root cause.  When things are right, those questions get us past the fluff, and increase our wisdom.

Anytime that I am given the opportunity to interview someone, I will often pepper them with a barrage of questions.  This does a number of things, but chiefly, it tells me A) what the person's position is on a particular topic, and B) has this person taken the time to think about the things I'm asking.

Jesus once asked His disciples a very important question, in part, to elicit similar information.  He asked them, "Who do the people say the Son of Man is?" His disciples answered that some people thought He was Elijah, or Jeremiah, or some other human prophet. Then He asked them who THEY thought He was.  Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God (Matthew 16:13-19)." Peter had paid attention!  He had listened to Jesus, understood His allusions to Old Testament prophecies, made the leap of faith, opened himself up to God, and therefore recognized Jesus for who He really was when God revealed it.  That recognition changed his life.

Who is Jesus? Your answer to that question will determine much about your life.  If you answer that question with He is my Lord, Savior, Son of the Living God, or my King, then you will want to do His will, and you will march against the darkness of the world.  And the gates of hell will not prevail against the advance you make for His kingdom!