The Four Questions

Twenty-five years ago the Lord gave me four questions to ask myself.  At the time, I Jan and I were between assignments and served for a short season on the staff of a large church. One day, I introduced the four questions at a staff meeting as a way to keep things simple and focused. The more complicated our lives become the more important it is to keep the core of our activity simple and focused in order to remain true to our original mission.

Here are the four questions I ask about my life and mission:

1.      What do I like?

2.      What do I not like?

3.      What do I want to keep?

4.      What do I want to get rid?

The questions are important to ask because this life can get complicated and side tracked if not monitored. I do not ask these questions every day. I ask them every few months. This gives me the ability to observe trends over time and make adjustments in a thoughtful fashion based on real data, not just a bad day or few busy weeks when I simply need an extra day off to get my act together.

There is something very spiritual about this kind of exercise. It keeps us from living in assumption – an assumption that the status quo is where God wants us to remain. The Kingdom is expanding and so should our personal lives, careers and ministries. Our effectiveness must be examined from time-to-time or we will find ourselves accumulating more and more things to do and under the weight of an encumbered existence stop moving forward. Walking in our destiny requires that we occasionally shed those things we no longer have a passion or assignment to carry.

“For my burden is easy and my yoke is light.” Matthew 11:30