Auto Repair Shop Owner's Daily Dose 49: The Quality of Your Questions (Faith)

The Quality of Your Questions by Rick White, President 180BIZ

Anyone who's been with me for any length of time knows that I honestly believe that nothing happens to me. It happens for me. And I'd like to give you an example of that. You may not be aware of this, but I am doing the live video this morning on Brenda's iPhone. And the reason is that yesterday I went food shopping for my household and my mother-in-law's household. I had my shopping list on an app in my phone. I laid the phone on top of some groceries in the basket.  When I bent down to get something from a lower shelf, my phone fell to the ground. The screen shattered rendering it completely useless.

So, in the beginning, it was a little unnerving. I could hear some texts coming through which was probably my wife. I thought that she's going to think I'm not paying attention since I’m not answering her. But I couldn't. I had to wait until I got home.  When I did get home, I was a bit upset.  But then I thought, “Hey, what's the lesson here?” I have to practice what I preach.  Here's the lesson.  This mishap happened for me. First of all, we have insurance on the phone, so it's not a big deal. I have another one coming tomorrow.  I haven't had my phone now for almost 24 hours now. And it's given me the gift of quiet. I never realized how much I used my phone.  I have been given the gift of quiet.  With it, there have been some amazing things.

First, life survives without the phone. It's an inconvenience, especially here at the house because it's our main source of internet. We're out in the country, we don't have internet. This quiet time has really been amazing. Not only have I been able to talk to God, but I've also been able to listen to him. I sometimes think we fill our lives with so much activity and so much white noise we don't listen to God.

Now I understand we need to pray, but I don't think prayer should just petition. I don't think it should be about asking for things or granting things. I mean, that's an important part. And Jesus says it many times, “Ask and it'll be given.” But I also believe that prayer should be a conversation. And a conversation is between two people. The issue is we fill up the quiet time because we're so uncomfortable with it. One of the things I heard TD Jakes say, “Maybe you ought to date yourself.” So, I did. And when I've gone on dates with myself, by myself, I learned to be comfortable with it.

So, in the last 24 hours, I've been able to mow the yard.  Normally, I would listen to a book while I mow. But yesterday, I didn't listen to anything. My mind was just going and going. I asked questions and I got answers. And here's the thing. You have it in you. You're the internal critic. You know that little voice inside that's kicking your butt all the time. So how do you tell the difference? When you're listening to God, his answers are always going to be based on love. Your inner critic is not that way. Right? That inner critic is terrible. That inner critic is always tearing you down. I believe that when I'm listening and I hear a love-based answer, that's the Holy Spirit. That's God talking to me and I don't hear it through my ears. I hear it in my heart.

And the other thing, I think we need to look at the quality of the question we ask. Last night, Brenda asked me, “What are you going to talk about tomorrow?” And I said, “I don't know.” if I had said to myself, “Why can't I think of something to talk about?” That's when the inner critic will appear and kick my butt. But when I ask God, “What can I talk about tomorrow that will touch someone's life?” That's when I get ready for the answer. Make sure you're asking questions that are positive based and presupposing that the answer's going to come.

The other thing is in this time that I've had some quiet, I've been able to think about what I'm going to talk about next Sunday. I know what I'm going to talk about on Monday and Tuesday. These daily doses came to me like little God wink.

I’ll ask you to do this. It's uncomfortable. There might even be a withdrawal feeling to it in the beginning, but I ask you it unplug from the phone for a while. Shut it off. Life goes on. And the other thing I'm going to ask is when you're sitting down and having your time of prayer with God, make sure you give yourself time to ask a question. Such as, “How can I serve you today? How can I make a difference today? How can I help others see you today in me?” These are some great questions to ask at the beginning of your day to make a difference. I want you to sit down and get a little quiet time. Shut the TV off, shut the radio off, and get comfortable being by yourself. Go out on a date with yourself, ask yourself questions. You're going to be amazed at the answers. So, I'm going to ask you to give yourself the gift of quiet. I think this is a big deal. We're just so busy with activities and then when we don't have the activities, we have noise and I think it's time to slow it down. I think that's one of the gifts in the whole virus thing is to slow this down a little bit and to get comfortable with being by ourselves and maybe having some conversations with the Lord.

I'd like to just end with a little prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this beautiful day. It looks like we're going to get some more rain. Thank you for the sun yesterday so we could do some mowing. Please be with each one of us in our families and I'm going to ask, Lord, that you give each of us a little bit of quiet time so that we can hear your voice and hear how much you love us, how much joy we in you and that you're going to gently nudge us in a way that will help us bring others to you. Help us to be your angels here on earth. I ask in your son's mighty name. Amen.

Thank you so much for being in here today. I hope you have a blessed Sunday. Please use this day to recharge. Fill yourself up so that you can tackle next week like a pro. We're going to get through this together. Let's rock. Have a good one. Take care. God bless.