Blog Post: What Is Your Answer to the Most Powerful Question Jesus Ever Asked?

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email

What Is Your Answer to the Most Powerful Question Jesus Ever Asked?

Recently a student coach asked me as his client to imagine Jesus listening to our conversation and then Jesus interrupts and asks this powerful question.

“What do you want me to do for you?” – Mark 10:36, 51

My coach turned this practice session into a possibility torrent. Jesus hadn’t just offered me three wishes. Jesus opened up a time portal and showed me what was possible if He would open up all the doors on my coaching topic. You know it’s a powerful question if I’m still thinking about it a month later.

Coaching rarely deals with fluff topics. By its very nature, it draws out what is important in you. As the client, my coaching topic concerned how to impact my community now that I had a new role. I pastored for 20 years in the community, but now I am a trainer/coach. One opportunity has been offered to me but the offerer has a particular vision for it. My question was, “What would I like this opportunity to look like?”

Near the beginning of the conversation, my coach asked me to imagine that I was sitting in the presence of Jesus and He was listening along in this conversation. Jesus looks me at me with love in His eyes and asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” I had never been asked that question before. I was instantly transported away from my narrow thinking on this issue and brought to a wide avenue of possibility.

Don’t get anything wrong here. Jesus is still the master, and I am still the slave, but Jesus treats His slaves like brothers and like friends. When He asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” it isn’t a blank check. (See his response to James and John in Mark 10). His offer is a genuine willingness to put some strength behind my godly effort.

Coaching at its best is about creating awareness. Coaching is about learning something deeper about the topic or about yourself. This question immediately made me understand deeper possibilities, but later (even a month later) made me understand more about myself and what I was created to do.

The question for me was visceral. I felt a difference immediately. Rather than feeling like I was scratching the surface of a murky topic, I now felt like I had plunged into the sea of possibility. The cold of the water startled me. I was surprised how clear the water was once I was beneath the surface. There was so much to look at, so much to discover.

What would I have if I got everything I wanted?

My call had been transferred from the complaint department to customer service, and the manager wanted to make the situation right. I found myself flustered by the responsiveness of God. I took on a much more respectful attitude as I pondered my response to the question. I would qualify, “This is not my final answer,” as I began to share my thoughts on what I might like Jesus to do. With the man who writes the ticket standing right in front of me, I realized that I might not be ready to get everything I always wanted.

I began to share what it might look like if I were to have the success I imagined. I shared who I might work with and who might work with me. I shared the changes that could occur in our community if my efforts built up momentum. But still I asked God to stay His hand before I considered all that was possible.

I didn’t want Jesus to act because I feared He might just move me immediately into my deepest desires. Strangely, we are more comfortable with the struggle than in living from our natural strengths. We are more comfortable with Jesus on a leash. Upon further reflection, I realized Jesus might be showing me a future that wasn’t right for me.

With Jesus asking this question, my assumed constraints were thrown out the window. The very concept of Jesus’ Kingdom of God makes me think that even in a world of turmoil, communities can and will come together to make a better place. Communities need people to sacrificially lean into their strengths in order to light up their darkest areas.

This question caused me to think that rather than my 20 years of pastoral service in my community being now over, I might actually move to a larger role in the community. Two conflicting truths begin to battle: One, our community desperately needs new life. Two, I’m not sure I want to be in that large of a role.

Another new awareness was that this isn’t all or nothing. His question simply opens up the possibilities from a crack to a chasm. I felt free to go as deep as I wanted. The possibilities were many.

Who else would walk through this door if Jesus opened it wide?

I’m always surprised at how well coaching can draw out a crowd. What role would I want to play in the community morphed into what role could my family play in the community? Awareness has encouraged me to go slower. I have a natural tendency to jump off the cliff without much notice. My wife wants to make sure I have a toothbrush.

This powerful question brought awareness that my choices wouldn’t just affect me. They would affect those closest to me. God has positioned my family in an interesting place. It isn’t just me who has influence. It is my highly intelligent wife, who is even more emotionally intelligent. It is our adventuresome daughter, who isn’t sure what impact she will make, but is sure she wants to do it in a much more interesting setting. It is our high school age son who I often describe as the most popular unpopular kid I’ve ever seen. It is our middle school age son who towers above his classmates not only in height but in influence as well.

Jesus brought an awareness to me that this opportunity wasn’t mine alone. Jumping off a cliff is not the best way to bring a family along with you.

How can I best position my family to make a difference in our community without making my kids feel like I just hung a banner over their shoulders that reads “Weirdo”? I have the ability to be too pushy and force the situation. Coaching allows me to consider how to take a confident step with the least amount of bravado. How can I naturally set my wife and kids, and even myself, in a position to succeed?

This powerful question rightly slowed me down to see if there was a way to involve my whole family in this venture.

What would be my new name if this went as far as it could go?

There is a difference between waiting in a long line and finally hearing, “How can I help you sir?” and being approached by the most powerful person you’ve ever met and asked, “Brian, what would you like me to do for you?” This isn’t the lottery.

I asked my coach what made him ask that original powerful question. His face communicated as much as his words. He looked unjustly blessed, almost apologetic. There was even a hint of sadness. He said, “It is the question Jesus asks me all the time.” Jesus has a tremendous calling on this man’s life. This man knows what is possible with Jesus opening doors for him. But the question comes with a price. This is an “all-in” question. He knows the sacrifice that often comes with following the calling of the Lord.

There is power in your name, in your identity. You weren’t created to be a piece of furniture or a recurring character in the cast. Your identity is cast in the image of God and your presence has been designed for an eternity.

Does Jesus mean it when He asks this question? Is it just a trick? Is it like me asking my son, “Would you take the dog out?” It isn’t really a question. But I believe God’s question truly is a question. In a move that always surprises me, God has partnered with us in impacting our world.

We may have a quick list of answers to His question. Heal my father-in-law. Make this bill go away. Smooth over the mess I made. Stop me from plunging into my own sinful abyss. But Jesus’ question, this powerful question, makes me stop and ask, “Why exactly is He asking?” He is asking because He has created me for the work. He has created me as a conduit for His Spirit, that flows best when I am most myself.

How can I be my best self? Where has God uniquely created me to work? How can I be my most fruitful? If I take this path, will it take me closer to God’s holy mountain or farther away?

Conclusion

We often say coaching with no actions isn’t coaching. A bigger truth is coaching without a deeper understanding of your identity isn’t coaching.

The most powerful question in the universe is asked by the most powerful man in the universe. That gives me appropriate pause because God is calling us to go “all-in” with our created purpose.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. – Romans 12:2

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *