What Do You Want? – Part 1 — Morning Devotions

By Chris WittsSaturday 28 Dec 2024Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute

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I think there are times when we should stop and think about the really big questions of life. I know that it is easier to ask a question than to answer it, but there’s a big question we all need to answer.

And that is a simple one, what do you want?

I suppose each of us wants something, but what is it? What is the big thing we want? What do I want? Seems obvious but most of us never answer this simple question. Not clearly, anyway. We may think we know, but we couldn’t put it down on paper in a complete sentence. Because we’ve never tackled the challenge of drilling down into our desires, we aim at nothing in particular, then get frustrated because we hit nothing in particular. Funny how that works.

Most counsellors would tell you that if you want to get to the depths of where someone is you have to ask questions. But they also tell us that the kind of questions you ask make all the difference in the world.

Some important life questions

The unwritten rule is this: Avoid Yes and No questions. Instead, ask questions that make people think. Questions that have no right or wrong answer but instead push an individual to search for a way to articulate their response by using more than one word.

That’s what a good counsellor will try to do. I’m sure you’ve had to answer many questions in your lifetime, and you still have many more to contemplate. We never stop learning.

Here are a few interesting questions:

• How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
• If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?
• When it is all said and done, will you have said more than you have done?
• If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
• If not now, then when?
• If you get to where you are going, will you be where you want to be?
• What do you want to be when you grow up?

I’m sure millions of children have been asked that last one. Not easy to answer.

These are life questions. They compel us to examine the direction of our life, our priorities, what we think will make us happy; what it is we are doing with life. It’s a six-million-dollar question.

When Jesus asks the big question

I like the story in the first chapter of the Gospel of John, where John the Baptist was out with two of his disciples and saw Jesus passing by, “Look, the Lamb of God.” When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They replied, “Teacher, where are you staying?” And Jesus replied, “Come and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. (John 1:35-39).

Jesus took no time to ask the big question: “What do you want?”

What a great question. In fact, it’s one that we are faced with every day of our lives, isn’t it? Later today you might go to lunch, and someone will ask you, “What do you want?” Perhaps later this evening you will be searching around for the remote control and your wife will ask, “What are you looking for?” But it seems to me that when Jesus turned around and asked the question, He had more in mind than a sandwich or a TV channel remote.

He wanted their answer to come from the depths of their souls because He knew there was potential for change. Because if you think about it, people’s lives could be significantly shaped by what they “want” or “what they are looking for.”

(To be continued in What Do You Want? – Part 2)