Receiving vs. Figuring Out Solutions
“When the men reached Jesus they said, ‘John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, “Are you the one who is to come or are we to expect someone else?” Lk 7:20
Today, I’m using the Gospel to share about this concept of figuring out your path to anything rather than receiving the answer.
In this Gospel from Luke 7:18-23, we see this scenario where two disciples of John The Baptist are coming to Jesus and they ask him point blank in verse 19, “are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?” And Jesus’ response was kind of classic for him where he simply said, look at what I have done, make your conclusion, and report back to John.
He didn’t answer directly, he just said, here’s what I’ve done, you decide what you wanna say to John.
It’s frustrating, in some ways, because why would Jesus not give a direct answer? He seems to not do that regularly. It’s always a story, an anecdote or comparison. It’s always some type of philosophical, maybe, reverse psychology, response. Then the individual has to go through the process of figuring it out for themselves.
To me, that approach is frustrating. Also, I have come to appreciate it because there’s something very powerful about me going through the process and coming up with my conclusion, my way of doing it, and my style of learning.
The entire journey makes it more valuable to find the answer at the end. It may have been the same outcome, but the process to get there is very different.
Today’s gospel is a nice reminder of the comparison of when you tell somebody the answer directly without them doing any work versus when you help the person figure out the answer.
My proposal is to reflect and compare stories where you had to go through the process of figuring it out versus when somebody gave you the answer.
- Which one was more powerful for you?
- Which one was more life changing in a way?
For me, this comparison exercise has changed the way to help others because I understood transformation happens when the person can see the solution for themselves.
Thank you for watching/reading,
In peace,
~Juan
