The Power of a Good Question

I ask God a lot of questions on the daily. But I’ve noticed recently that God often asks questions, not because He needs information or doesn’t know…it’s because often, I’m not asking the questions that I need to be asking.  Some of my new work is based on this idea.  

The whole idea of using questions as a way to start a piece of art or process a piece of art started when Dan Augenstein and I did the “Where Are You?” Two-person show.  You can read about that show in this blog post. 

We focused on just one question that God posed to Adam after the fall…”where are you”, but if you look at the ancient stories and text, there are a whole lot of questions that God poses to various people (Old and New Testament).  What are you doing here? (I King 19:9)  Where are you going? (Genesis 16: 8)  Do you want to get well? (John 5:6)  Who do you say that I am? (Luke 9:20)  Just a few.  There are more.  

For this body of work, all 6x6s, I let my intuition create the scenes and then I considered the questions that they might be pointing to; questions that God was asking me to answer.  Questions about my heart and my mind and my connection with Him.   In doing so, I ended up allowing the figures in the collage come out into the open and out of hiding.  It was a glorious revealing of not just the collage but myself that felt very needed.  

This led me into some beautiful moments of self-reflection, prayer, and closeness to God as I worked through these simple questions meant to mend my soul.  

I think the question that really grabbed my attention the most is “Where are you going?”  I’m usually on the move, doing something, and at the age of 43, I feel the need to take stock of where all these “things” I’m doing are taking me. Where AM I going?  Do I even know?  It’s a sobering question.   And it brought up another passage that I’ve been chewing on… Isaiah 30: 20 - 22

“...yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher.  And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” 

Perhaps an additional question that I need to ask myself is “Where are you going and who is going with you?”  All too often, after I know where I’m supposed to go, I take off and don’t match pace with the God who told me where to go in the first place.  I just run and then wonder why I’m burned out, frustrated and angry.  Hmmm….  

So as I move into more art in the coming year, I’ll be keeping these questions in my heart and mind and answering them thoughtfully because I know from whom they are posed and I know His heart for me.  It is good and filled with love.