The Right F–ing Question- November 2022

The Right F—ing Question

Years ago, a friend of mine was in the process of systematically destroying his life. He was enmeshed in a problem that was eating his lunch and nothing I could do or say seemed to wake him up to the danger he was in. His career, health and marriage hung in the balance.  It was obvious to me that he was headed off the cliff if someone or something didn’t stop him.

After all previous overtures had failed, I asked if he would talk to my friend, Dennis. Dennis was uniquely qualified in this brand of self-destruction.  I was hoping that someone with the same issues might be able to get through to him.

He said yes and a few days later, found himself trying to bullshit my very non-BS friend, uniquely skilled in the art of telling it like it is. After a few ramblings to try and justify his behaviors, he finished with a question that immediately alerted Dennis to how deceived he was.  The question seemed to alert Dennis to how speedily he was rowing his boat towards the onrushing waterfalls.  Dennis paused before stopped him in his tracks with his distinct, Texas accent: “Hey buddy…. you are asking the wrong f—ing questions.”

Hadn’t I already said a version of this to him with no effect? But this time, something registered. He was jolted into reality and the scales began to fall off his eyes. There was something about the abruptness of Dennis’s statement that woke him up to the mess he was in. It started him down a whole new path for my friend and ultimately, a healthy life.  He realized that he needed to quit playing himself and others.  He needed to start asking the right questions.

Jesus understood the importance asking the right questions too. “Who sinned Rabbi? This man or his parents that he was born blind? “You’re asking the wrong question,” he told them in the Message translation of John 9.  A man like Jesus didn’t need to use an f-bomb to be heard.  Unfortunately, the men in Galilee didn’t comprehend how important the right question was to their well-being.  With their faulty construct of the situation, they stayed stuck and continued on the path to destruction by asking the wrong f—ing questions.

This morning, my loving Father woke me to the importance of asking the right question of him today, brushing aside faulty questions that I had brought to him to fix my situation. Doesn’t my wife see the unfairness of what she is asking?  Don’t my friends at work realize that they are missing my perspective?

“These are the wrong questions for you today, Joe,” Jesus tells me.   “None of this stuff really concerns you.  Your focus should be only between you and me.”

Oh, that’s right. Now I remember. This business of you and me. So that’s the right question that I should be asking.

Without the right question, we never get the right answer of course. That’s obvious.  But our loving Father also wants for us is for us to be engaged in the process of humbling seeking him and engaging with him each day. Asking the right question implicitly does that for us. It causes us to lower ourselves before God in seeking the path to life.

I don’t think Dennis ever told my buddy what the right question was. He didn’t need to. His words had jolted my friend into seeing things as they were. His abrupt tone caused him to pause before taking a few more steps over the precipice into destruction. He began his first tentative steps from death to life. He began to humble himself in seeking help.

Now, back to me and my own mess, which seems to be where God wants me to focus. I need to humble myself before the Father this morning.  I must remember that he loves me despite my screw ups and beyond all comprehension. I lay myself out before him exposed and vulnerable and say, “Papa, it turns out that I need you again today. Not for a few minor things but for everything. I can’t do it on my own so I must ask you to do it for me. What are you asking of me for this moment?  For this day?”

The right question. The beginning of life itself.