Asking the Right Questions

We saved $1700 on our new car because we asked the right questions.

First, the salesman never volunteered that a standard shift cost $900 less. Asking the right questions, we quickly learned of this potential savings. Later, as we were wrapping up the deal, the finance manager promoted the extended warranty "for only $16 a month more" ... and only when we asked the right questions did we learn that the warranty can be purchased at any point before the basic warranty expires - without the $800 interest we would have paid over the life of the loan.

I'm learning that asking the right questions is important in life as well as in car shopping. So often our first question when there is a problem is "What went wrong?" "What happened?" "What did I do?" Or the everpopular, "Why, Lord?"

The Israelites faced such a challenge. Numbers 13-14 records their failure to see that God was up to something big, and instead chose to complain and ask the wrong questions. Of 12 spies - leaders of Israel - only 2 brought back a good report. Israel's response:

Then all the community raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the Israelites murmured against Moses and Aaron, and
the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had perished in this wilderness! Why has the Lord brought us into this land only to be killed by the sword, that our wives and our children should become plunder? Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?” (Num. 14:1-3)

All the wrong questions! Sometimes, asking different questions can provide us a totally different perspective. When we're facing a change - wanted or unwanted - asking "What is God's view?" can yield an entirely different perspective. When we say, "Where is God working?" in our new circumstances, we often find the answer to why He shifted us - His moveable treasure - around in what seemed such a haphazard way.

The Israelites missed the chance to ask the right question - "What is God going to do about this?" would have been a good start! Instead, they shrank back into questions that didn't help a thing.

And an 11-day journey took 40 years.