Awkward questions. We hate answering them, but even more we hate asking them. After all, who really wants to be the douche bag who questions the emperor’s clothes, or points out a discrepancy.

What if we’re embarrassed? What if we’re misunderstood?

Let us express ourselves more fully, and without fear of repercussion. Let us learn the difficult art of guileless honesty with our family and friends. 

Let a culture that does not depend on keeping up appearances be the one that we cultivate. 

A community of friends who’ll bear with the worst to get to the best of you.

An din that, be bold enough to share not only your hurts and disappointments, but even more so your dreams and deepest desires.

https://davidleemartin.com/awkward-questions/

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00:00:03.400]
Like asking awkward questions. That’s what I want to talk about today. I mean, nobody really wants to ask the awkward question, do they? No one really wants certain. He doesn’t want to answer them. But I think even the asking of awkward questions and hard questions is possibly the most difficult thing that many of us sometimes have to deal with, even more than answering them. But it’s sometimes the hard questions that really are the ones that yield the greatest results, if we can ask them in the right way.

00:00:37.480]
You know, no one like no one wants to be the guy who kind of calls something out. No one wants to be that. The girl who points out some kind of discrepancy because we fear being misunderstood or we fear being kind of embarrassed or whatever else it may be. And so we just remain silent. We choose not to step out and kind of get clarity on some of the things that we’re asking and speaking in our hearts. I mean, we all know what it’s like to be in a situation where no one says anything.

00:01:17.890]
But really, we know that everyone is probably thinking the same thing. You’re not there’s these social mores. I don’t even know if that’s the right word, but social kind of things that just prevent us from taking that step and actually asking the question or pointing something out or seeking clarity on something, because we’re not quite sure how we’ll be heard. And the reason I’m talking about this is I was actually I was reading in the scriptures and the the story of where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well say here are the here are the disciples and Jesus.

00:02:04.660]
They come into Samaria. I mean, that alone is kind of outside of the norm. And to top it all off, Jesus sends his disciples away and then decides to hang out with this woman of questionable reputation in the heat of the day by this. Well, and so the disciples come back and they see Jesus doing something that was completely contrary to anything that they would have considered acceptable. Really, that was the situation. And there’s just as great as this great scripture.

00:02:45.440]
Let me just show you this. Yeah, you’ve got he had Jesus. And he says just then the disciples came and they wondered. They were surprised and astonished not to be astonished by something. Is that means that there’s like something very out of the ordinary here. Now, Jesus wasn’t juggling. He wasn’t like riding on like a unicycle or doing anything of kind of circus style. What they found astonishing was something that ran contrary to the culture that had been brought up in.

00:03:20.980]
And I think that we’ve come into a day where our culture has certain things that, like everyone wants to speak up. But there are a lot of things that remain unsaid. I’m not encouraging people to complain, by the way. I’m just looking for like just kind of digging in and exploring something. See, the disciples came. They wanted they were surprised and astonished to find him talking with a woman like a married woman. However, this is so, so interesting and so revealing.

00:03:55.180]
However, not one of them asked him, what are you enquiring about or what do you want or why do you speak with her? Now, the interesting thing is here they were all thinking it, man. They all but no one wanted to ask the awkward question. And yet and I totally get that. But how many questions remain unanswered? OK, how it’s human nature, isn’t it, to always want to put forward like a a good face to the world?

00:04:31.210]
OK, we don’t want to be awkward. We don’t want to be misunderstood. But in that often times we fail to dig in and dig deep so we can begin to benefit more people. Because the thing is, like some of those questions are the ones that we most desperately need answers for the things that we struggle with, the the attitudes that we wrestle with so often. And, you know, I believe that God. Wants to bring us into a place where we develop a culture of freedom, where we develop a culture of openness, where we develop a culture of honesty, where we can really come and bring all of ourselves without fear of repercussion, without fear of judgement, without fear of reprimand.

00:05:24.250]
And in that we can we’re not always kind of looking to, I guess, protect our reputation in a sense. You know, it’s often our ego that’s at odds with just being who we are and really just laying it out there and saying he is my heart. He is who I am. He is what’s going on. He is what I feel. He is what I think. Now, obviously, that has to be wisdom and all of that.

00:05:57.700]
But there’s just it really has with everything they this comes right back to the prayer closet and being like an incredibly and deeply honest with God, being open with God. There’s such a this verse in Psalms really sums it up so beautifully. Search me God I know in my heart and try me, know my thoughts and see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Now I just think that really there was a there was a recognition in David that there were things in his heart that had lodged their hooks and and splinters that had lodged in his heart, that just left him unable to operate at his full capacity if he didn’t overcome them, if he didn’t search them out and bring them to the light.

00:07:02.650]
And that’s the key thing, isn’t it, really? The scriptures tell us that, that the light shines in the darkness and that darkness can’t overpowering. And so some of these things really do need just to be brought to the light within the context of trusted relationships. We need to engage in a community, engage with people, with friends, with family. We need to be engaged in connexion with people who will really put up with the worst of us so they can get through to the best of us that we’re not all kind of kind of skirting around things and like not in a not in a wrong way to do.

00:07:51.370]
Again, this is this is like something that is not so easy to unpack, not that we want to be offensive, not that we want in any way to not be sensitive to other people, to how they feel or how our words might make them feel if we just kind of the splurge it out everywhere. But to develop a culture, to develop relationships that allow you to be yourself, that really sanction the questions and the conversations that often are not taking place.

00:08:34.310]
And well, I’ll tell you, the thing is the conversations generally are taking place. The conversations generally are taking place in our own mind. All of those kind of W-W, those Wrestling Federation, WWF, we’re got like these things, wrestling in our brain and attitudes, wrestling in our heart, you know, but we don’t actually give give. We don’t actually bring them to a forum that allows us to unpack them and unravel them, bringing them to the light and let the let the light really dispel the darkness.

00:09:19.750]
How many people today are walking around with real roots of bitterness in their soul, real roots of bitterness and lies that have taken hold in their thinking about their identity or about how about other people, about what other people might think or say about them or whatever else it may be? Because these things have not been brought out to the lines, you know, and there are certain emotions out there that are difficult for us to deal with. If we’re honest with, you know, no one wants to feel or feel angry or confused or disappointed or hurt.

00:10:02.720]
And but the longer these things are stored, yeah, the longer we the longer we are unwilling to engage in a deeper level of relationship with other people. And by that, I don’t just mean every Tom, Dick and Harry on Facebook or Instagram. I don’t mean in a kind of complain fest. I’m talking in chosen relationships where we understand one another, where we are one hundred percent committed to build one another up, one hundred percent committed to encourage one another to champion one another’s cause and calling in the world.

00:10:43.050]
But wow, like how few and far between those relationships sometimes are and how much courage it takes for us to step out and begin to engage with others in a way that would be considered, as my friend Dan Wahidi says, in a truly authentic way. And, you know, but it’s not just it. Oftentimes when we talk about being open, when we talk about being honest, when we talk about being authentic, I think sometimes we look at it very much from a negative standpoint that like, all right, to be honest and to be authentic really means that, like you you kind of giving permission for people to just like, say all of the things that have gone wrong and how they feel so bad and all of that kind of stuff.

00:11:38.300]
But I just want to turn the coin today. Yeah. I just want to turn the coin and say, actually, the times that we make ourselves most vulnerable are not the times where we necessarily share our hurt. It’s not necessarily the times where we share our questions and our confusion and those awkward questions that I’m talking about, although I think that is part of it. I think that’s part of the whole. But where we get really vulnerable is where we put our dreams and our desires out in front of other people where because that’s really what’s in the depth of our heart, what’s deep in our heart of the things that Jesus planted before you were even born, the things that Jesus planted within you, before you even kind of took your first screaming step out of the womb.

00:12:36.830]
There were things that the Lord has planted and desired and planned for you. And those things reside within you. You know, there is an awareness of them. There’s a recognition of them. And I think as we begin to open ourselves up and express those things, that’s where the real vulnerability is. And that’s why so many people kind of want to just kind of be over on the side somewhere and not really step into their full destiny. They want to kind of stay in the safety of that kind of shadows and the corners of life, rather than stepping out front and centre and actually saying, look, this is what I believe God has called me to do.

00:13:26.330]
This is the message that I believe that God has called me to bring. These are the things that are in my heart to begin to kind of step out on and accomplish and bring to the world this. This is the dent I want to make. This is the message I want to bring. And like I know myself Larna and I know ourselves that that stepping out can be far more vulnerable, far more frightening in some ways than even exploring some of those hurts and exploring some of those dark places.

00:14:02.450]
Like, truth be told, we all need some healing on the inside, do we not? Truth be told, we all need to be able to come like David and say, Lord, search my heart, Lord. Even I like. The thing about darkness is sometimes you don’t see it. We all have blind spots. And that’s why these we don’t have 360 view. That’s why we need to cultivate these deep, real, honest relationships and friendships that we trust and we’re trusted in.

00:14:39.620]
So we can so someone can come and really say, hey, David, look, you’ve got this blind spot here. I heard you speaking the other day or I read something that you wrote or, you know, I could just you know, sometimes it’s just like I can sense there’s something behind what you’re saying or doing right now that, you know, isn’t flowing from the overflow of abundant love. Or whatever else it may be, you know, we need people around us like that.

00:15:08.010]
Yeah. And so we but we don’t. It’s not just about our hurts. It’s not just about these these awkward questions we ask best asked in the secret place and allowing the father to speak into them, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak into them and really speak deeply to our identity. And then out of that, you know, out of that relationship, then begin to show up in the world and be bold enough and be courageous enough to share your dreams, be bold enough and courageous enough to say like like for me, it took it took a shift really for me to begin to express my heart and say I’m a writer.

00:15:55.550]
I to begin to express my heart and say, look, I believe that I’m called to encourage creative, entrepreneurial Christians, artists, authors, entrepreneurs, men and women of God who believe that that God that there’s something bigger for them to step into. Men and women of God. He believes that, you know, despite maybe not being in a in a pulpit ministry somewhere or whatever, you know, kind of ecclesiastical clothing you want to put on that, you know, but they still know they’ve got something that they deeply want to bring to the world.

00:16:32.240]
I believe that I’m called to help some of those people. I believe that I’m called to speak into those people. I believe and this is really just putting it out there. I believe that there are some books in me that will deliver the Holy Ghost anointed culture shifting culture shaping thoughts. Yeah. And that’s still in me. They’re still baking in the oven. But I really believe that now putting those kind of things out into the world, I believe that I’m called to gather a community of creative Christians and be instrumental in really giving permission for them to step out and get bold with their dreams and get bold with their desires in the same way that we are.

00:17:24.410]
And I guess that’s one reason why the Holy Spirit is asking me to do this. You know, that’s one reason why, you know, despite knowing that many people may be going, oh, man, here he goes again or whatever, you know, we’ve got to get over ourselves. Humility is not hiding in the shadow. Yeah. Humility in the biblical sense of the word is stepping into the light. Humility is not shying away. And from your call and and the person that you believe God has called you to be and is shaped you to become, it’s actually stepping into it in a way with a childlike trust that as you do so, he will take care of outcomes on your behalf.

00:18:22.450]
And so I want to encourage you absolutely. You know, to look for those relationships in your life and be willing to reach out to just, you know, not every one, OK, but just find yourself a number of close associates, a close friends, comrades in arms, men and women that you know, you can walk with and be honest with and begin to be kind of bold enough to dig into those relationships, dig in to those conversations, to begin to allow yourself to be more vulnerable in expressing some of the questions and maybe hurts and disappointments that you’re dealing with.

00:19:08.500]
So in bringing them to the table, bringing them to the light that that the that the heat and the light and the life of the Holy Spirit can unravel those things and the lie can be diminished. And at the same time, you know, and again, this is so important. This is not just about like pull out the dirty laundry, actually, at the same time. And this is, I think, the biggest, biggest key to stepping into your call and stepping in to kind of truly authentic Lee kingdom living is be willing to begin to verbalise, express and step out on some of the dreams and the hopes that you carry in your heart, because as you do so, those hopes and those dreams will begin to take on substance as you as you apply faith.

00:20:05.140]
Faith gives substance to the things you hope for and all of that kind of all of that Holy Ghost life and energy that is that has been so abundantly planted in your heart will be able to spring up and begin to bear fruit in the lives of other people. As the scriptures say that God has given each of us, every one of us, specific individual gifts for that, for building up everyone else. That’s what we call to do. You are uniquely anointed.

00:20:45.820]
You are uniquely gifted. And I just want to encourage you, hey, let’s begin to get honest, not just not just with complaints. So God help us all. We really don’t need more complaints if that’s if we’re honest. But let’s get honest with sharing our dreams with other people. Let’s begin to step out and say, hey, I’ve got this thing in my heart. I really believe God wants me to. It might be write a book.

00:21:18.880]
It might be start a podcast. It might be can I create some videos? It might just be to step out and and and begin writing a blog. It might be it might be press go live like I have been doing and just begin to kind of share your worth and share your words with the world and share your message out there. I encourage you to verbalise it, to write it down, to begin to explore it in prayer and then to take it to trusted friends.

00:21:51.940]
You know, just allow this allow that vulnerability to reach beyond the bounds of your privacy, reach beyond the bounds of just that secret place and begin to engage with other people. And then as you do, you’ll find that you will discover a greater and greater boldness to step out and take steps toward fulfilling what you know, you are called to do and who you know you are called to become. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully it’s been an encouragement to you today.

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If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at Davidleemartin.com. Have a great day.