You can’t get the right answer until you have asked the right question.
this is an interesting statement because it really is true. For instance, any parent has experienced this when their child comes home and they ask, how did the day go? Or when a wife asks her husband the same question. Or perhaps as husband asks his wife, where do you want to eat?
Or maybe if you have ever got pulled over by a police officer and the officer asked, do you know how fast you were going? Or maybe the officer asks do you know what you did wrong? I mean for me the answer to those questions can be so extensive that I need a better question.
If none of that has happened to you what about when you ask someone how are you doing? How surprised would you be if a person stopped and started sharing the depths of their soul with you in that moment?
You can’t get the right answer until you have asked the right question.
Perhaps you hear this statement and think, yeah, but that just doesn’t sound like how it is supposed to work.
Bingo! And why, after all, at face value these questions are perfectly good questions. I mean there is an answer that could open the door for much conversation and relationship, honesty and integrity, even joy and comfort.
But because of who we are and the way we have been conditioned to think, our self-preservation skills kick in and we respond in ways that do not bless the people around us and many times are not even honest with our own thoughts and emotions.
But when the right question is asked, something happens, we open up, we begin to share the things on our minds, in our hearts, and the desires of our soul, or at least the desire of our stomachs. We begin to experience something much deeper than we might have expected or even knew was possible.
In our Gospel text today we hear Jesus ask the disciples a question.
The right question to ask is Lord Jesus, show me what has been conditioned in my mind, heart, and life that is not of you. Show me Lord what has been conditioned in my mind, heart, and life that is not of you in my relationship to my spouse, with my children, with my siblings, with my parents.
The right question to ask is Lord Jesus, show me what has been conditioned in my mind, heart, and life that is not of you in my identity?
The right question to ask is Lord Jesus, show me what has been conditioned in my mind, heart, and life that is not of you in the way I spend my time, money, and abilities?
The right question to ask is Lord Jesus, show me what has been conditioned in my mind, heart, and life that is not of you in the way I treat other people: my attitude, actions, and reactions to others?
The right question to ask is Lord Jesus, show me what has been conditioned in my mind, heart, and life that is not of you in my thoughts and fears and coping mechanisms?
These are the right questions to ask because asking them reveals that we believe in the power of who Jesus is and his desire and ability to defeat the gates of hell. Listening to the words of Jesus bring us light and give us life. To whom or to what else can we turn Peter proclaims.
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