I met with a young man recently who is passionate about growing in his relationship with God, being a better husband and father, becoming more active in the church and community and excelling in his work.
He’s sensing an internal, self-induced tension to do more and be better in each area of his life.
His question to me was basically, how can he balance all the things he wants to do or feels he needs to be doing?
I certainly understood the question. It’s a pressure I’ve experienced many times in my life, especially during certain seasons. In fact, I’m sensing it again as I entered the empty-nester phase of life. I do believe in order to be successful with all the demands a person has, one has to get better personally, physically, spiritually, emotionally and relationally, before we can achieve more but, I think there may be a better answer than that.
I gave him one word of advice that has helped me during those seasons. Perhaps you need to hear this as well.
I challenged him to consider if he was asking the right question.
Instead of asking…
What should I be doing?
Maybe he should be asking…
Who do I want to be?
I have found that when I consider the person I want to be that the actions I need to take to get there become clearer. In fact, many of the actions I may have thought I needed to take, become less important, because they don’t seem to help me become who I say I want to be.
Which question are you or do you most need to be asking?
Instead of asking “Why did this happen?” I should be asking, “How can this make us better?”
One imporatant lesson for us here is —
"the answers we get are often determined by the questions we ask.
If we ask bad questions, we will get bad answers.
If we ask better questions—empowering questions—we will get better answers."
Great post Ron! Thanks for sharing with us.
Good one. We should be asking that often, especially during the toughest times of life.
I was a 1st time visitor at Grace this past weekend. I don't quite think I fit into any of the categories listed. My background is as follows: I'm a member of a church here in town and attend another of different denomination (yikes, don't like that word!) and my children were baptized, and married, in the old country, family church which, by the way, is seeing fewer and fewer members and visitors alike. I'm think I might fit under the category of "taste tester". Every once in a while, I will venture to a new (for myself) service, the church could be in town or out of town. I really enjoy and seek what is being shared to believers and seekers alike, where there is prayer, preaching and singing going on.
Thank you for a great visit to Grace. I will stop in again….I love to hear the story of Jesus… wherever it might be!
I know who I want to be. I just don't know how to get there. So I guess I need to be asking how I get there.
Good question…might consider baby steps…sometimes we look too hard at the destination and not the one foot in front of us approach. Just a thought