Answers to Our Questions

Isn’t it funny how, when you meet someone for the first time in an elevator, at the neighborhood pool or in some casual social setting, you both talk for minutes and never find out each other’s names?  This always baffled me! As a former news reporter (and extrovert) I tend to ask a lot of questions and in meeting a new person and talking with them for a bit, I do introduce myself and ask for the other person’s name (and these days, since I’ve grown up a little, try to talk less and listen more.)  In making life decisions, I often used to take opinion polls of people, asking “should I stay or go, should I keep my mouth shut or speak up, should I give in to my child’s request even if I’m enabling bad behavior, et cetera.)  I look back and see I was always trying to find a new angle or a different answer. Now I usually ask one or two trusted friends/advisors. Still, I’ve learned, the answer ALWAYS comes from within. I often have to pray about it and hear myself talking to find it, but it always comes. And sometimes I definitely need to wait for it to be revealed – and not act or react before I know what the right course of action is! Occasionally a person can get annoyed when I ask too many questions I guess. But I don’t think God does. I think He wants us to keep asking questions of life, of Him…but I also think He wants us to be completely open to the answers – to remain “detached” to the outcome and be open to uncertainty (as Deepak Chopra would say) – basically to be open to His Will. God says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened…if you know how to give good gifts to  your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” (Mt 7:7-11) Make today, June 1st, a warm spring day, a day full of wonderful surprises and miracles that will happen if we seek them with an open heart.