I’m Just Asking…

I’m Just asking…

“Grandpa, may I ask you some questions?” That’s how my seventeen-year-old grandson recently began an hour long phone call. Andrew was loaded with a series of thoughtful theological questions. He’s been struggling to help a good friend come to understand the faith and decided to ask me for insight and counsel.

I was honored and inspired by Andrew’s questions, so at the end of the call I asked him one: “Is it well with your soul?”

Many have given me permission to enter into their private world, just as I have given them permission to enter into mine. We have the mutual freedom to ask anything, and we do. While some resist probing questions, the wise embrace them. We know we need others to illuminate our blindspots and prompt us to see what we may be missing.

I’m on assignment. In this season of my life God has called me to strengthen others by serving as a sort of soul-full physician. I’ve been commissioned, and at times even compensated, to do precisely this. Asking thoughtful questions is essential to insight.

As with you, I actually pay others to ask me questions!

My doctor just asked what supplements I was taking.

My attorney asked how I wanted my estate to be distributed.

My financial advisors asked me what important values drive my investments.

Questions are good for me and good for us all. Here’s the most important one of all: Jesus once asked, “Is anything more important than your soul?”

Your soul is the essence of you. It’s the place where you most authentically connect with God. So, who have you given permission to ask the important questions about your inner world? Questions like:

“Are you increasing in humility, kindness and gentleness?”

“Are you patiently listening to those closest to you?”

“Are you frequently engaging in unhurried and unhindered soul enriching conversations?”

“Are you daily quietly seeking to hear the still small voice of God?"

In his wonderful book, New Morning Mercies, Paul David Tripp really nailed it for me a few years ago. He repeatedly warned against the trend of our culture to be contented with what he calls “terminally casual relationships.” That is, we’ll talk endlessly about surface stuff, but we rarely talk about soul-full stuff. Here is the keeper line for me…

“We each need to live in intentionally intrusive, Christ-centered, grace-driven redemptive community.” I’ve been especially gripped with his words: “intentionally intrusive.” Those words are both sobering and inspiring. This is next level stuff. While I don’t expect just anybody to challenge me like that, I do want some to do that. Certainly my wife and closest allies frequently do that for me, often because I ask them to do it!

I often seek feedback, saying: “What free advice might you have for me?” Frankly, people are usually surprised and some are even shocked by the question. Why? Seldom does anyone humbly ask others for wisdom. For years I sought that when leading a large staff; however, I came to note a pattern.

While I frequently asked others for advice and insight, only rarely did others ask for the same from me. Perhaps it was because they assumed I would eventually tell them what I thought they should know or do, and indeed I often did. However, it would have been far better, both for them and for me, if they had humbly, or at least curiously asked me first!

So, whom have you given permission to ask you anything?

Here are a few more insights on this from Paul David Tripp.

“This community is meant to enlighten and protect. It is meant to motivate and encourage. It is meant to rescue and restore. It is meant to instill hope and courage. It is meant to confront and rebuke. It is meant to guide and protect. It is meant to give vision and warning. It is meant to incarnate the love and grace of Jesus when you feel discouraged and alone. It is meant to be a visible representation of the grace of Jesus that is your hope. It is not a luxury. It is a spiritual necessity. The question is, ‘Are you webbed in?’”

I’m on mission to help “web others in” by connecting with both head and heart. I have no desire or capacity to be close to everyone; however, I do desire to see everyone become close to someone, preferably to several. It’s not enough for us to simply share sermons, lessons or inspiring stories. We need to ask each other serious soul-full questions; however, we have to earn the right to do that.

I have at least earned that right with the forty or so who have been in covenant groups with me. None of them are surprised when I circle back to check on them. They welcome it. They know my intention is not to put them down but to lift them up. And I know the same is true when they check in on me.

So, who checks in on you? Many years ago the followers of John Wesley were gathered in small bands that met weekly. In those regular gatherings they typically asked each other one question: “How is it with your soul?”

Those small “soul full bands” resulted in a movement that shaped Christianity in America for decades. By contrast, the electrifying evangelist George Whitfield drew massive crowds, far larger than Wesley’s. But at the end of his ministry, Whitfield lamented that he hadn’t done what his friend Wesley did. He sadly observed that his followers were now merely “a rope of sand!”

I don’t want to leave “a rope of sand” when I leave this world. I want to leave a growing network of thriving leaders committed to helping each other live well, serve well and finish well. I want to leave a multiplying ministry of soul-full initiators who dare to regularly ask one another, “Is it well with your soul?”

Are you willing to ask that question of others this week and then to ask others to ask you that question as well?

I’m just asking.

Grace and Peace,

Alan

P.S. Speaking of “asking” - for the first time ever we’re asking those blessed by the ministry of Covenant Connections to “pay it forward.” If you’d like to partner with us this Christmas time would be a great time!

Click HERE to give!