Best Question Ever pt 1 (long post)

This week, Matt and Lynn did a small group emphasis on Wednesday night’s Innerface. They broke everyone up into their respective small groups as an attempt to get new students plugged in. Over all, it was a great night and great strategy.

My part in this was to lead the college group, called “The Uprising.” For the discussion, I talked a out the Best Question Ever, and broke it into two parts, since I also will lead the usual Sunday night discussion this week as well.

Many times, people wind up in a place where they ask, “How did I get here?” The problem isn’t that they plan to screw up their lives, but rather that they didn’t plan not to. People don’t plan on having a failing marriage, but few plan not to. They don’t plan on being in huge financial debt, but few plan not to. They don’t plan on going from relationship to relationship, ending up with pieces of a broken heart, but few plan not to. Nobody plans on being addicted to substances, but those that are rarely plan not to. So the problem becomes a lack of safeguards against things that can derail our lives. We just get in the car and drive without consulting a map, checking the car to be sure it’s ready for the trip, making sure it has enough gas to get there, etc. We don’t plan ahead, we just go because we don’t ask the Best Question Ever.

Perhaps the greatest realization we can come to is that we are masters of self-deception. We can talk ourselves into a terrible idea. I can convince myself that a poor choice is a good one, because somehow the rules don’t apply to me. I am somehow superior than the odds, and can maneuver my way through it. But in the end, I discover that I too have made a grave mistake.

The Best Question Ever clearly defines for us how to proceed in our decision making process. The question is simply, “What is the wise thing to do?” By itself, not much of an epiphany. But if you think about the questions that we normally ask when making decisions, it is a HUGE breakthrough in our decision making that can keep us from derailing our lives.

Typically, we ask ourselves a series of 4 questions. The questions are usually in our subconscious, and are rooted in the before-mentioned self-deception.

The first question is, “Is there anything wrong with this?” The problem with this question is simply, we are focusing on the wrong thing. In essence, we are basing our decision making solely on whether it’s right or wrong. But in a clear perspective, is there anything wrong with buying a car? Of course not. The issue here isn’t whether it’s morally right or wrong to buy a car, but whether it’s financially feasible to do such. The Best Question Ever causes me to ask, “Can I afford the car payments? The insurance?” At that point, I can then make a wiser decision. Wisdom isn’t NECESSARILY rooted in morality, although morality plays a big part in wisdom.

The focus of that question really leads us to a second question, “How close to the edge can I get before I do something wrong?” In Christian terms, “how close to sin can I get before I cross over and do something sinful?” This of course is an error in thinking. Jesus never called us to live near the edge, but rather to walk with the mind of Christ.

If we operate in the thinking of, “How close can I get before going over?” this will eventually lead us to the third question, “How far OVER the edge can I go before the consequences become unmanageable?” So here, we are ok with some consequences of our actions, but because we are masters at self-deception, we somehow think that we are above the circumstances, and can “get out whenever we want.”

Then we find ourselves asking the fourth question, “How did I end up here?” And we realize that we have made a huge mess of things. Somewhere along the way, someone warned us, maybe we even felt it ourselves, but we thought we could handle it, then we find ourselves crying out for help because we have hit rock bottom.

Good is the enemy of best. Our typical line of thinking causes us to settle for good when God designed and destined us to have the best. I believe the number 1 strategy of the Devil is to get believers to settle for good. If believers caught on and started living their lives for the absolute best that God has for them instead of settling for good, we would see a dramatic change in this nation towards God. But the enemy has lulled us into settling for what is good instead of what is best.