Three questions to ask the next time you’re faced with a difficult situation in life.

Several years ago, my husband and I were facing a tough situation in our lives. I don’t remember the details—who was involved, what it was about, or what the outcome was. I don’t remember if it was a minor issue that we solved in a few hours or if it was a lingering problem that went on for weeks with no resolution. I don’t even remember if it was exclusively my problem (or his) or if we faced it together.

But what I do remember are the three questions that came out of this difficulty, questions that my husband raised in the midst of this trial to help provide us with direction and guidance. These questions have stayed with me ever since, and have given me clarity and lessened my burden in a wide variety of situations: problems with children or other family members, issues in my marriage, dilemmas in church, personal trials, and more.

The questions are these:

In this difficult situation…

• What does God want me to do?
• What does God want me to be?
• What does God want me to learn?

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I was nearly 30 before I ever went to a funeral. I was 27 when I first held a baby (a coworker’s niece), and well into my 20s before ever attending a wedding or any kind of shower. It took marrying into a large, loving, and functional family before I ever went to a housewarming, graduation party, or milestone birthday party.

Because I grew up not going to these kinds of events, the typical family get-together happenings (including large “church family” get-togethers) have never come easily to me. Even today, after many years of experience with my husband’s extended family, I get nervous before attending almost any large event. Thankfully, my husband, who is in most other ways more introverted than I am, is comfortable at these occasions, and he patiently supports and encourages me through each one.

My near-total inexperience with extended family events or milestones was never a surprise or a disappointment to me. I knew growing up that I lacked many things that my peers took for granted in their lives, due to my family situation and socioeconomic status. But I also grew up missing one other, much more vital thing that I never knew I was missing until much later:

I grew up thinking that the human heart is only capable of limited love.

I believed, from my experience and the examples around me, that people have a limited capacity for loving one another, and especially for loving multiple people at one time. I believed that the heart was like a small bucket, filled with a finite amount of love, which could be offered and taken back, depending on mood or circumstance or whim. I believed that all of one’s love could be given to one person, leaving nothing left to give to anyone else. And I observed that holding back one’s love was the safest route because it was a much better guarantee of never being hurt, rejected, or let down by another person.

Up until the time I got married (my late 20s), I’d had no reason to doubt my previous life experience with the heart’s limited capacity to give or receive love. Very soon, however, my world (and heart) expanded to include the ever-growing, fully functional, and exuberantly loving family that I had married into. Within just a few years, my previous experience and knowledge of the human heart were toppled by powerful and irresistible forces that convinced me I’d had it all wrong.

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I was six or seven the first time I remember the feeling. Playing by myself (a fairly common occurrence for an only child), talking to my dolls or to my cats, lost in a world of my own imagining. And then out of nowhere, the feeling—soon to be a familiar one—swept over me: a great desire, an aching yearning, a tremendous longing for something I couldn’t name.

This highly unusual feeling was a little overwhelming for such a young child, and when it came upon me from time to time, I would catch my breath and sit quietly, my mind trying to pin it down, to capture it so I could name it. It was unpredictable, visiting me a few times a year for most of my childhood. And while it was a bit disconcerting, I soon learned to relax and simply experience it as best I could. Not that I had a choice in the matter. Resistance was futile, so I learned to be okay with never understanding what it was or why it was.

During the few minutes when I sat quietly with this feeling, I knew it only as an unmistakable, unresolved longing that caused an ache in my very soul. In my child’s mind, I began to associate it with water because it seemed to me that I was remarkably thirsty, in need of liquid, and then my thoughts would shift and I would long not for a drink but to be floating in water, my whole self, surrounded and supported by gentle, comforting waves as I experienced a complete rest and peace that I never knew I craved.

Years later, I learned the German word that approximates this inexplicable longing or yearning: “sehnsucht.” I also learned that C. S. Lewis had written of this phenomenon several times:

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“Tell me again why we baptize babies?”

That was the message my husband and I received from our oldest son several years ago, when he was stationed in Japan.

It was an honest question. Simply put, he had witnessed several other Marines getting baptized in the Pacific Ocean and was thinking about whether he should, as well. He had previously been baptized at age four, soon after our family had joined a church that practiced what’s commonly known as infant baptism.

I got to thinking about this just recently and began to contemplate my own baptisms. I’ve actually been baptized three times, and that seems a little out of the ordinary to me. If multiple baptisms are a common occurrence, I’m not aware of it. But then again, baptism isn’t something that comes up in everyday conversation, even among Christians, so I really have no idea.

The question of “whether to baptize” has never been a question in the Christian church—the answer is yes—but “when and how to baptize” have been valid, and often contentious, issues for hundreds of years. Since thoughtful, entirely sincere Christians have disagreed on the answers to “when and how” for centuries, and since I’m neither a theologian nor a church historian, this article won’t go there. Suffice it to say that I’ve been on both sides of this issue, I have Christian friends who are on both sides of this issue, and I believe with all my heart that God does not look upon either group with more favor than the other.

In so many areas of life, I find myself in the middle, able to see both sides of something, and baptism is no different. Maybe it’s because I’ve personally partaken in every common version of Christian baptism: infant baptism, believer’s baptism in childhood, and adult baptism. Some weren’t exactly my decision, and some I can’t actually remember. Here’s how and why they came about:

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Recently I sat in an unfamiliar church, surrounded mostly by people I didn’t know, listening to a sermon preached by my oldest son. This experience wasn’t entirely new to me; I’d listened to my husband (who is not a pastor) preach a few times years ago, as he completed the requirements for his seminary degree. Sitting in those pews twenty years apart, I was more relaxed as a mother than as a wife—perhaps due to my greater age and experience, and perhaps because I no longer had several small children to wrangle as I listened.

By the time my son’s sermon began, I felt entirely at ease with the whole situation. The songs were familiar … the liturgy was familiar … there were no surprises here. I wasn’t even the least bit anxious about how my son would do, what he would say or wouldn’t say, or how he would say it. I felt calm, at peace, and ready to hear about King Saul and how he tried to kill David multiple times (1 Samuel 18:6-16 and 1 Samuel 19:8-16). It was a story I knew well. As my son stood at the pulpit to begin his sermon, I settled in and got comfortable, ready to listen.

All was fine until about fifteen minutes in. We’d been given the background of King Saul and his relationship with David—that Saul knew his (already shaky) kingship was threatened by David, his jealousy and hatred because of that threat, how he gave in to his anger and pride, and how he attempted to murder David, over and over, in order to rid himself of his “problem” and continue being king. So far, so good.

Then we were asked to think of ways in which we resemble Saul, and things took a turn that I’d never experienced before in church. It was not “comfortable” at all.

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I have a friend—let’s call her P31—who is sometimes unfairly misunderstood. This makes me sad, because she used to be well-liked, even highly respected, by women who shared her faith and her faithfulness, who looked up to her as a role model and who were inspired by her. I was (and am) one of those women.

Years ago, as a new Christian and very busy new mom, I was fascinated by the book of Proverbs and was especially drawn to the end of chapter 31—twenty-two verses that offer a picture of a godly wife, or as my Bible describes this passage, “The Woman Who Fears the Lord.”

Baby Christian though I was, I knew I wanted to be a woman who fears the Lord. As I read and reread verses 10-31, I grew in admiration for this godly woman who used the abilities, gifts, and energy that God gave her to bless her family, her extended household, and her community. P31 and I were soul sisters in lots of ways and she was a great blessing to me as I spent years working out what it meant for me to be a Christian wife, mother, wage-earner, neighbor, church member, and citizen.

I just assumed that everyone felt about P31 the way I did, until twenty years later when I was with a few other Christian women and one made a casual, somewhat negative comment about P31. I can’t remember the exact words, but it was accompanied by a heavy sigh and an eye roll.

Initially, I was confused. Had I misunderstood her intent? Was she actually stating a dislike for P31? Later, I did a little searching online and was shocked to find that I had entirely missed an anti-P31 movement within the church as a whole. The Proverbs 31 woman, much to my surprise, was no longer inspiring virtuous, noble qualities and habits in many of my Christian sisters, but instead was inspiring envy, anger, eye-rolling, frustration, feelings of inferiority, negative comparisons, and more.

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When my kids were little, one of our homeschool lessons was on “red flags.” We talked about  what things others might say to get you to do something your parents have told you not to do.

We wrote two examples on small flags made of red construction paper: “No one will know” and “Everybody’s doing it.” We also discussed a few others, including this classic red flag question: “Did your mom or dad really say that? Are you sure? Maybe they actually meant something else.” I stressed that a red flag meant they should stop and think about what they were about to do, and that their parents have given them rules for a reason, even if they don’t understand the reason at the time.

Red flag comments or questions often come from someone who appears to be a friend, or seems wiser or cooler than you are, and/or seems to be having more fun than you are. Through questions or comments like the ones above, they plant some sort of doubt in your mind and encourage you to disobey. This method of sowing seeds of doubt has been ensnaring people, both children and adults, since the beginning of time. Literally.

The very first red flag question in history

The first, and most notorious, act of disobedience in the history of humanity is related in Genesis 3, also known as “the Fall.” Adam and Eve aren’t children, but they are children of God. They are naïve and as yet untested in life. You know the story: God (the Father) had previously forbidden Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and they were tempted by Satan to eat from it. They ate, and sin entered the world.

It’s no coincidence that Satan used the same method that people have been falling for throughout history, the method that we still caution our children about today. The serpent came to Eve with a carefully crafted plan to deceive her, and the first step of the plan was to plant a seed of doubt about God in Eve’s mind. In various Bible translations, here is the common red flag question that Satan asked her:

Instead of answering, “Yes, really,” and turning away, Eve allows the serpent to plant a seed of doubt. She then unwisely continues talking, unequipped though she is to tangle with the enemy. She tells him what God said, but she gets part of it wrong (God had said to Adam, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” 2:16-17, but Eve has added, “neither shall you touch it,” 3:3). Her willingness to engage in conversation and misstatement of God’s word (for whatever reason) does not go unnoticed by the serpent.

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I love hearing Christian testimonies because I’m fascinated by the many ways that God works in the lives of very different people.

I was a Christian for many years before ever fully describing to anyone how I came to Jesus. I was never asked to, and I never volunteered. But when we joined a new congregation a few years ago, as a part of my membership interview I found myself sitting in a room with two elders before church one Sunday morning. My testimony was part of the membership process.

Now, being a person who spent her first 30 years living apart from Christ, and having a somewhat unusual upbringing which led to some poor life choices, my testimony (I now know) takes a good 25 minutes, give or take, to tell properly. But that’s quite a speech, and church was starting soon, so I whittled it down considerably while still conveying the most important parts of God’s saving grace in my life. I made sure to mention how I stumbled across the books that first introduced me to Jesus as a young child, how and why I fell away from the faith for 20 years, and the book that brought me back—first to God, and then to Christ.

I was able to condense 30 years of my spiritual life down to about a ten-minute monologue (the gist of it is here). But as my lips were calmly saying all the things I needed to say, my brain, not at my bidding, was playing a movie in the background just for me: my entire testimony, my entire life, flashed before my eyes. And suddenly I was overcome with emotion—an overwhelming feeling of God’s goodness to me, his faithfulness, his patience … and I found myself finishing my testimony with a spontaneous and heartfelt statement: “I don’t understand why God chose me, why he saved me, of all people. Because I did nothing to deserve this. I had ignored him and avoided him for all those years and he still pursued me and brought me back.” And by then I was crying.

This statement and these tears weren’t at all my intention when I sat down with these two men I didn’t even know all that well. One of them handed me the tissue box and said gently, “It sounds like you came to Christ in a very emotional way, with your heart.” I found this an odd statement at the time, because I thought I’d made it clear to them that God brought me to himself, twice, through books, through reading, through my mind. But here I was, getting choked up over the goodness of God and how he saved a wretch like me. Why did he do it? I still couldn’t fathom it, and it had me in tears. It was an emotional moment, for sure—a moment belonging to the heart.

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How content are you with your life? Are you fully content with …

Discontentment has been a part of being human since … well, since Adam and Eve, and every generation since. I know I’ve struggled with it my whole life. I’d like to say that when I became a Christian 25+ years ago, I was able to overcome my struggle and have since conquered discontentment … but that’s not true. I still find myself needing frequent reminders, encouragement, and instruction on how to be fully content and accepting of the life that God has chosen to give to me, in every respect.

Along this lifelong path to Christian contentment, I’ve found much support along the way—people and books that have helped me grow in this area, step by step through the years. I can trace the path I’ve taken, book by book, mentor by mentor, and maybe some of this will encourage or help you along your path to contentment, too:

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