Great Questions
One thing that I have learned over the past few years is that asking the right questions is a vital part of leadership. Great leaders ask great questions. If you want to be a great parent you need to learn to ask the right questions. If you want to have a great marriage you must learn to ask the right questions. If you want to be a great business leader you must learn to ask the right questions. If you want to handle money wisely you must learn to ask the right questions.
I am convinced that in so many areas of our lives we are simply asking the wrong questions. And common sense tells us that if we are asking the wrong questions, there is no way that we will ever arrive at the right answers.
With that being said, I would like to share with you what I believe are a few great questions.
1.) Where is this heading? We make the mistake of judging the health of a relationship by where it is right now. But the truth is, you never judge the health of a relationship by where it is now, but rather by the direction it is heading. All relationships are heading somewhere. Your marriage is heading somewhere. Your relationship with your teenager is heading somewhere. Your relationship with God is heading somewhere. This not only applies to relationships. It also applies to your finances. What direction are your finances heading. The bible says, “the prudent (wise) see danger and take refuge, but the simple (unwise) keep going and suffer for it”. That means that we should look ahead and act before all of your options become bad options.
2.) What’s in my heart? From an early age we are taught to monitor our behavior. Remember your mom saying, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”. It is all about behavior modification. Jesus, on the other hand, said to “guard your heart”. Jesus said, “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks”. What is in our heart is affecting all of our relationships and all of our decisions. If we simply go through life trying to filter what we say and do, we will never deal with the root of our problem. It’s like cutting off a weed at ground level. It is a temporary solution. You must kill the root of the weed or it will just keep growing back. In the same way, we must deal with our heart and not simply our behavior. What’s in your heart today? Greed, Anger, Lust, Jealousy, Worry, etc…
3.) Am I part of the problem or part of the solution? We like to blame other people. It is always someone else’s fault. The thought rarely crosses our mind that “we might be apart of the problem”. Last year we saw a perfect example of this played out at Charles Henderson High School. It was the first year that students were required to wear uniforms. And needless to say there was a lot of drama the first few days of the school year. There were several parents that showed up ranting and raving about their child being sent home or being sent to the office for not obeying the new dress code. These same parents wonder why their child has problems obeying them. Could it be that these same parents have unknowingly taught their children to rebel against authority because they themselves rebel against authority? Could they be part of the problem? Could you be partly to blame for the problems that you are currently complaining about?
Jeremy Davis 