QUESTIONS

THANK YOU FATHER.

When I was a little girl my aunt's boyfriend was like the most handsome, smartest strongest looking man that I knew. I just used to love him when I was about 8 years old. He would always talk to me and my brother like we were people, not just insignificant children.

I remember how he would ask us questions and when he asked the questions at the time I thought that he was being mean, because I felt like there was no way that I could answer those questions, I was only 8 or 9 years old.

I wanted him to ask me easy questions that I could answer so that he would be proud of me and like me more, because of this childhood crush I had on him.

He wasn't asking the questions to be mean or to call us on the carpet with criticism, he didn't ask the questions to make us feel stupid and make himself look grand, he didn't ask the questions to say your mother isn't teaching you anything, he would ask us questions that gave us no alternative but to think and to seek out the answer.

Dwayne was his name and he was teaching us to use what God had given us for the purpose that He had given it.

God has given to us everything that we need and we won't use it.

Not until I was an adult did I understand what Dwayne had done in asking us questions.
Everyone isn't like this, in order to be a person who desires to truly see other people grow, you don't just sit and Lord over them pouring your text books into them, you teach the people how to fish.

To seek first the kingdom, not what you want them to believe about it, but the truth about it.

When the Lord Jesus asked His disciples how the 5,000 would be fed on a mountain top with 5 loaves and 2 fish, He didn't ask the question to shame them but to get them accustomed to seeking the face of the Father for answers.

I had to recently discipline my 10 year old son for being in the habit of lording his knowledge over his 9 year old sister.
Criticizing her with words like "Duh!" when he had the meaning and understanding twisted and confused.

He would begin with by asking his younger sister a few easy questions and then if she had the answer, he would make his next question even more difficult.

Because he is in the fourth grade and he is doing Algebra he believes that he is the bees knees.

So my 16 year old daughter would come in and ask him a physics question and quiet him down for a minute.

Well my son decided that these girls are not smarter than him so he began to ask questions that neither could possibly know the answers to.
He would continue to ask questions until he believed that one of the girls had gotten one wrong, just so he could say, "No, Andy or No Kayla that's not right!"

Out went that little bird chest of his in pride because he felt he knew more than his sister's.

You know how you just stand back and observe your children? and I noticed that he wasn't asking questions in order to help but he was asking questions in order to keep his little man ego in tact.

Well a couple of times he asked questions that he couldn't even answer correctly, giving an answer that he had heard on a Nickelodeon television show, that was wrong.

Then I had to ask him, "Why are you asking these questions, to help or to hurt Andy?"
Now my sweet son is put in the position to have to think and examine why he is asking his sister these questions.

I assured him that he is a very smart young man and just because his sister's are smart that doesn't make him any less, that he should be proud to have sisters who can read, study and comprehend.

Well we got that under wraps and I explained to him that the reason for asking questions of your sister's or anyone else for that matter is not to belittle or to get them to agree with you, but to help them learn to seek out an answer.

If I ever ask you a question it's to get you to think.
My questions are to get you to open up the Word of God and seek the answer from God.

It's not so I can Lord some information or time that I have spent over you or to press some opinion that I heard from someone else that I believe is clever.

Many people don't want you to think, they want to think for you and they want to speak for you.

The Father has given you a measure of faith and said if any man lack understanding, let him ask of God.

The Father wants you to seek the answer so that you can explain how you got the answer and why you know it to be true.
When this is your habit and the pressures of this world come against you, you won't falter or draw back or get angry for nothing.

You won't be trying to go up by another slick route or plan that you have devised.

My questioning my son gave him no alternative but to face the truth in what he was doing. It was deceitful what my son was doing. He understood what he was doing was not helping and he apologized to his sister's and now if they have a question they work together to find the answer.

I'm going to be asking some questions of those who read my blog in the days to come and they will be a benefit to you.

They won't be to prove some point that I am trying to make, they are going to bless you when you seek out the answer and answer it for your own soul.

For example:
Why is it that even though someone might suggest that you praise God, you find it hard to?

This question is not one to criticize you in the place that you are in, where you feel like you have lost hope or there is absolutely no chance for you and doors are closed in your face.
It comes from a place that desires for you to seek why it is that you would believe that God has given up on you.

Most of our questions can be answered based in who we allow to influence us.

How can you praise a God who you have been told will not hear your cry?
How would you know to praise a God who you have been told will not have mercy upon you?
How could you dare to praise a God when someone has told you that God has walked away from you?

You wouldn't follow after a God like that.
He knows that, this is why He says to seek me first.
Blessed is the man that sits in His counsel.

LOVE Y'ALL :)
THINK like Aretha said.

Matthew 7:7,8
John 15:7
James 1:5
1John 5:13-15