What should you do with an impossible dream?

Last week I spoke to about six hundred middle school kids—at an all-school assembly at the end of the day on Friday. Not sure if that’s brave or crazy.

The kids were great. I encouraged them to dream big dreams and believe they can accomplish remarkable things. They listened and responded. Then we had a few moments for Q&A.

Open-ended Q&A with middle school kids is always an adventure. On Friday afternoon …?

They asked some pretty safe, predictable, polite questions. They one boy stood and boldly asked, “Would you encourage me to try to learn how to fly? No plane or anything, just flying on my own?”

I worked with middle school kids for a long time. They can’t surprise or shock me—this guy was just doing his job, being an eighth grader, asking the most off-the-wall question to see how the old guy would respond.

I let him know I recognized the nature of his request and we joked back and forth a bit, and then it was time to go. But I thought about his apparently silly challenge and realized that perhaps it wasn’t quite so silly.

It wasn’t silly because any dream worth the label seems off-the-wall to lots of folks. People who always color inside the lines, play it safe, never attempt anything without assured success—those folks always look at dreamers as eccentric at best, insane at worst. Society doesn’t have a place for big dreams.

But that’s exactly why I was there. I wanted them to think about “impossible” challenges. That young man’s question actually presented a great opening, an opportunity I missed. There was a better response.

I wish I’d responded with…

“Well, that depends. I think any dream is worth chasing. I’d encourage you to go for it, as long as you’re willing:

– To pursue that dream no matter where it takes you.

– To plan and prepare, learn what you need to learn, read everything you can find, and ask others for help.

– To risk the ridicule of people who think you’re crazy, ‘experts’ who tell you you’re wasting your time, and friends who might reject you because you’re the nut-job who thinks he can fly.

– To have courage, to do what’s required in spite of your fears.

– To work and sacrifice and try again when you’ve already tried everything.

– To face the possibility of failure.

– To silence that inner voice telling you that you’ll never make it.

“If you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make your dream happen, then I’d absolutely encourage you to go after it.”

That’s what I believe.

That’s what I wish I’d said.

What would you add?

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What Are You After?

Faithful And Lacking Faith

Limits Or Possibilities?

Have you ever asked a question and received a less-than-helpful answer?

A few days ago my Internet connection decided to demonstrate its absolute power to control my life. For no apparent reason I’d suddenly have no signal. A few moments later everything was fine.

This cycle recurred several times. I did all of the standard stuff—restart, unplug, reset, but the problem persisted. In frustration I looked at Monte, my dog and network consultant, and asked, “Why won’t the stupid thing work?”

Monte, of course, refused to help.

Since I’m preparing for an interactive retreat this weekend, I’ve been thinking a lot about questions. I realized that even if Monte answered my question, it wouldn’t have helped much. He might have offered a bunch of technical information about the inner workings of my network router or outlined the mysterious processes behind encryption.

Eventually, my floppy-eared expert might have explained why the connection wasn’t operating reliably. Great background information—now I know why it’s not working. Super.

I asked a poor question.

Suppose I’d asked a better question: “What should I do to make the connection to work?”

Instead of providing a technical explanation, Monte could have answered simply. Do these four steps, toss your consultant a doggie treat, and—eureka! It works.

I didn’t really care why the connection failed; I just needed concrete actions to re-establish my lifeline. It’s a silly example of an important principle:

To get better answers, sometimes I need to ask better questions.

Those who know the most about something don’t necessarily have all the answers, but they usually know how to ask the deepest, most useful questions. This morning that principle challenges me to re-think my conversations with God.

Perhaps the answers seem confusing because I’m asking the wrong questions. Maybe if I seek to know Him and His character more fully I’ll understand how to ask better questions.

One of the themes for the weekend will be God’s role in adversity. We’ll look at a nearly universal question: “Why does a loving God allow horrible tragedy?” (I wrote a bit about this here)

Suppose God sat down in front of me and explained His reasoning. Suppose I clearly understood why He allowed my injury. Would that knowledge reduce the pain or remove the frustration? I don’t think so. Why isn’t the right question—bad question, less-than helpful answer.

Will You show me how to carry this burden? Will You redeem this pain, even though You didn’t cause it? Can You show me how to make this struggle count for something?

Better questions. Much more helpful, life-changing answers.

What questions are you asking? How might you improve the questions and receive better answers?

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My Child, Your Sins Are Forgiven

Reasons To Start

Prevent It Or Fix It?

Someone recently posed an interesting question about questions. He asked, “What questions hinder you from a complete and full relationship with the Lord?”

As a teacher I always maintained that sincere, authentic questions enhance any interaction. I welcome questions because they’re a window that allows me to see what the other person’s thinking. I was surprised by the suggestion that questions might get in the way of my relationship with God.

Then he observed that the first time Satan spoke, it was in the form of a question. He described a sermon centered on the notion that the enemy uses questions in our life to tempt us into fear, doubt, or anything that would hinder us from living our life for the Lord.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” [Genesis 3:1-5]

Was the serpent asking a question? I’d say that he really made a statement in the form of a question to disguise his claim that they couldn’t trust God’s motives. If the question was sincere, the conversation would have ended when the woman verified God’s words.

Jesus And Questions

Jesus welcomed authentic questions. In Matthew 9 He explains why He chooses to eat with sinners and why His disciples didn’t fast.

However, He wasn’t fooled by insincere questions. In Matthew 21:(21-28) some Pharisees asked Jesus to explain the source of His authority. Seeing the deceit in their hearts, He answered their question with one of His own that exposed their fear.

I said earlier that “sincere, authentic questions” enhance an interaction. In my mind, such questions reveal an open desire to understand, to obtain information, to grow. I believe God welcomes those inquiries.

Responding To Questions

As a teacher, my students understood that every question wouldn’t receive a direct answer. I always told my students that I wasn’t afraid to say, “I don’t know but let’s try to find out.” If the student responded with “That’s okay, don’t bother” then I knew he didn’t want to know badly enough to dig for an answer.

I also reserved the right to reply, “You’re just not in a place to understand that yet” to a question from an algebra student that required calculus to explain.

For the most part my students learned to trust my judgment. They believed I wouldn’t duck legitimate questions, so they accepted “Wait a while,” when that was the best reply.

I think God answers our questions this way. If we really want to know and are willing to study and pray, He’ll help us uncover understanding that’s within our capacity. When we seek an answer that’s simply beyond human understanding, He asks us to wait and trust Him.

Occasionally we want answers we simply can’t understand even if they appeared. When a sixth grader wants to know why the formula for a circle’s circumference is “pi times diameter,” there’s no point is providing a derivation that’s beyond his experience. In a classroom based on trust, “Wait” is enough.

Same thing with God.

Some folks say that God tells us what He wants us to know and we have to trust Him for the rest. I tend to think that He tells us all we’re capable of knowing and understanding. I don’t think He withholds knowledge simply because He can, but because some things are beyond comprehension from human perspective. So I think we ask and probe as far as we can, and trust Him for the rest.

Problems With Questions

I suspect that questions get in the way in a couple of situations:

They’re not really questions. Kids often ask, “Why do I need to know this?” Sometimes it’s a sincere desire to make sense, to understand how this topic fits into the big picture. Often it’s a complaint that this work is difficult and I’d rather be outside. The “question” is actually a diversion, an effort to side-track the conversation.

In Genesis 3:1 the serpent used a question to plant the seed of doubt. We must always discern whether questions from others, or in our own hearts, are really attempts to remove focus from God.

The question includes a demand for an “acceptable” answer. It’s simply a fact that some inquiries lead to surprising, unpleasant, or downright painful conclusions. If it’s truly a quest for understanding, you can’t decide in advance what constitutes a suitable resolution.

You must also be willing to accept “I don’t know” as the response.

This happens a lot when we invoke God to win political or social debates. We pre-determine the agenda, then become pick-n-choosers who defeat the enemy with carefully-chosen arrows of scripture. Be careful the next time you hear, “What does God think about (insert policy or moral issue here).”

If you don’t want the answer, you shouldn’t ask the question.

Relationships

Questions are essential to growth and depth of interaction any transparent relationship. Since God created me to be in eternal relationship with Him, I can’t imagine that He’s offended by my questions. Like a wise teacher, I’m sure there are times when He chuckles and shakes His head at my lack of vision. I can hear Him saying, “If you could only see it from my point of view.”

He probably feels like the father of a two-year-old who patiently endures and endless litany of “Why, Daddy?” But like that human father, I don’t think He wants me to stop asking.

I believe He wants me to think and learn and ask and grow to my potential. I think He wants me to inquire fearlessly and openly.

And when I just don’t get it, He wants me to fall into His love and trust Him for the rest.

Are there any places where questions get in the way of your relationship with God?

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Asking The Right Questions

Compass Or Map?

Another Monday, another milestone that marks the beginning of new opportunities. With God that’s actually happening every moment, but Monday’s sort of our reminder that we get to start over. Today’s word-of-the-week is …

QUESTION

Are you fussing with an important question?

As a teacher I loved questions. Not the “how do you get the right answer” kind of questions, but the real questions that allowed me to see a bit of what was turning over in someone’s brain.

I still love questions. When I speak, I look forward to the Q&A time at the end. I enjoy the questions I receive in response to my writing. When someone asks a good question, you know they’re engaged. You know they’re listening. A question means the other person has stepped into the circle.

Real questions don’t have right answers. They’re never completely resolved, so you just keep asking and maybe getting a little closer. Each person you ask can only give you their small piece of the puzzle, so you just accept their responses as information that maybe gives you a little better picture.

The best questions also inspire. You search out information and opinion, synthesize the input, and assess what’s still needed. Questions prompt you to meet new people, reveal a bit of your authentic self, and listen carefully to their ideas. They spur you to act, and the process enriches both parties.

You’re beginning a new week. What’s the question? What’s the incomplete picture, who knows some of what’s missing, and what can you ask that’ll help you to see a bit more clearly?

My question: What can I do to prompt more direct interaction between you and me? I’d appreciate your piece of the picture as a comment.

Have a great week.

Do you ever ask why?

As a classroom teacher, I always thought why was a good sign. If a student cared enough about something to ask why it happens, I figured I was doing something right.

Of course, why doesn’t always really mean why. Sometimes it means it’s not fair and I don’t like it and I want it to be different. You have to know the difference, or you’ll spend a lot of time explaining to someone who doesn’t really want it explained.

I also learned as a teacher that when someone asks why you’d better be prepared to answer. My dad’s favorite response was, “Because I said so.” I always figured that was a good sign of a bad rule.

Why the concern with why?

I’m thinking about this because someone responded to Tuesday’s article (Why Take The Risk?) with another why. Why do a workshop that’s centered on the same story as the book? What’s the gain from a conference or retreat? Why bother with an in-person event?

It’s a good question. I thought about responding, “Because I want to,” but I really try to avoid the whole “sounding like my dad” thing. If that’s the best I can do, perhaps it’s a bad idea.

So I thought I’d explore some of my reasons for pursuing this project. I hope this isn’t just about me. Perhaps it’ll spur you to ask why you’re doing something important—or maybe why you’re not doing it.

Why?

Experience. We learn and grow through experience. Lectures and other impersonal presentations of information aren’t very effective. Most studies indicate that we retain less than 20% of what we hear.

Retention increases dramatically when ideas are embedded in a stimulating story. Emotional engagement draws people into the story, incites imagination, and encourages them to interact with content in a deeper manner.

Reading a great story is one level of experience. Writing notes in the margins enhances that experience, journaling takes it to another level. Talking to someone about it and hearing their perspective is even deeper and more powerful.

Spending extended time with a group, having the uninterrupted opportunity to reflect, explore, and respond—that’s a chance to prompt significant personal change and growth.

Throughout my teaching career I learned that challenging personal growth doesn’t have to intimidate. The same principles I used in my classroom—live, love, laugh, learn, lead—can integrate discovery and joy, uncertainty and laughter, struggle and hope.

Serendipity. I’ve always liked the word “serendipity.” It’s a word that makes me smile. I like the reminder that many truly memorable discoveries happen while we’re searching for something else.

A group is much more than the sum of its parts. Interpersonal relationships generate insight and change that seldom occurs in isolation. The most important outcomes are often completely unexpected.

My classroom experience convinced me that the best lessons are experiments—not scripted recipes with pre-determined outcomes, but genuine experiments. You toss big ideas into a mix of curious individuals, then watch as they generate something you couldn’t have predicted.

Live events never happen quite the way they’re planned—usually they’re better. So you enter an experience like this with a lot of material, a bit of uncertainty, and a heart that’s open and trusting.

Of course, I don’t believe there’s much “luck” involved in my version of serendipity. I think it’s the result when people gather with a desire to follow where God’s Spirit leads.

Questions. Good teachers value questions more than answers. Answers offer immediate satisfaction and comfort, but they close the discussion. Once you know, there’s not much point in further exploration. You check it off the list and move on.

But good questions generate a small bit of discomfort that inspires deeper digging. They don’t lead to answers as much as to other insightful questions. The things that matter don’t usually involve simple answers anyway, so the only way to approach authentic truth is to create a framework, hang some open-ended question on it, and then allow the process to happen.

Inexperienced leaders fear this approach. It’s unpredictable. It might take you to an uncomfortable place, or expose weakness, or encourage a difficult personal change.

Happily, we’re not doing the leading. The One who is knows what He’s doing.

Selfishness. I hope it’s “good” selfishness, if there is such a thing, but you put this sort of project together because you want to be part of the process. You want the experience, the serendipity, the amazing question that will change you in some unknown but profound way.

The best big projects happen through a spirit of what seems like selfish generosity. We put something together because we want to help, knowing before we begin that we’ll be blessed in some unexpected manner. So maybe we don’t do it for what we get in return, but it’s sure a nice side benefit.

Help?

One cool thing about being part of a circle is not working in isolation. You let go of the illusion of self-sufficiency and ask for help.

You can help first by praying that I’ll find the right people to assist in making this happen.

I also ask that you consider whether you might be one of those “right people.” If you know the story of Relentless Grace (or want to), perhaps you can connect me with someone who’d be interested in hosting a workshop.

I hope I’m not talking too much about this topic. Tomorrow I want to look at forgiveness, so if you’re tired of hearing about it I hope you’ll forgive me.

Why are you pursuing (or not pursuing) your big dream?

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Execution

What’s Up With That?

Great Work

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” Martin Luther King, Jr.

In my introductory Sunday school class I always begin with this premise: God welcomes our sincere questions.

I find that many people are surprised by the notion that faith and uncertainty can coexist. I think we sometimes imply that people of true faith don’t have questions. This false message squelches the expression of honest questions and creates significant guilt.

Many people avoid church because, at a crisis moment, their questions were dismissed. Death, illness, divorce, and other struggles raise questions about God’s character and presence. We cannot bring people closer to Him by marginalizing these very real doubts.

New believers especially feel that their faith is inferior because they experience doubt. I think it’s essential to clearly express our acceptance of questions if we want people to expand and deepen their personal relationship with Jesus.

However, the nature of the question determines the kind of response we receive. There are not necessarily any “wrong” questions, but some questions certainly provide much more useful answers.

JESUS AND QUESTIONS

Jesus was intolerant of insincere questions, especially from religious leaders.

One day as he was teaching the people in the temple courts and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,” they said. “Who gave you this authority?”

He replied, “I will also ask you a question. Tell me, John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or from men?”

They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet.”

So they answered, “We don’t know where it was from.”

Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.” (Luke 20: 1-8)

He recognized that they weren’t trying to understand, but that their question was designed to trap Him. To expose their evil motives, He responded with a question that they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer because they were afraid of the truth.

Contrast this with Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well. She asks two different questions, and both times Jesus answers directly.

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  (John 4:9-14)

When she questions His identity, He’s not offended because He sees that she’s legitimately confused. So He offers her an answer that expands her understanding.

MOTIVES

For Jesus, the key wasn’t the words, but the motivation behind them. At the end of the encounter with the teachers in Luke 20, Jesus says,  “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.” (Luke 20: 46-47)

“The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

I’m convinced that God wants to talk to us about our questions and doubts. When we go to Him with open hearts, He always finds a way to provide the understanding we seek.

EMPOWERING QUESTIONS

If you don’t ask the right questions, you don’t get the right answers. I think of the “right” questions as empowering questions because they direct toward growth, wisdom, and insight. Here are a couple of examples:

• “When will this ever matter to me?” leads to reasons why it doesn’t matter. “What’s interesting about this?” causes deeper investigation and understanding.
• “What’s the use?” elicits a list of reasons to quit. “How can I do better?” prompts you to ponder ways to improve the situation.
• “Why is the bible so inconsistent?” blocks further investigation because the conclusion’s already been established. “What’s the over-arching story?” or “What’s God’s eternal nature?” open the door to new and deeper interpretation.

QUESTIONS AS STATEMENTS

The elders asked Jesus, “Who gave you this authority?” He knew that they already had their own answer, that they were really saying, “You don’t have authority.”

As a math teacher I heard this question hundreds of times: “When will I ever use this stuff?”

Sometimes it’s a legitimate inquiry, an attempt to connect new material to the real world. But most of the time questions like this are statements: “I don’t think I’ll ever use this.”

I learned through experience that any attempt to respond to a statement-as-question is pointless. “Why would a rational person believe in God?” is really a statement, and it can’t lead to new insight. A more empowering approach might be, “How can I believe in God without denouncing rational thought?”

REALITY

When relationships collapse, finances are in shambles, or past errors make every step a nightmare, doubts hide in every shadow. Everyone occasionally wonders WHY when God’s ways don’t make human sense. Questions are a normal, real part of our walk with Jesus.

Faith and uncertainty walk hand in hand.

Ask your questions with an open heart. He’ll listen, and he’ll answer.

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. James Thurber

What’s a question you have for God?

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