Not Finished Yet - I Am a Work In Progress - Be Patient With Me

If your home page is MSN, then yesterday more likely you came across this article. It was posted in their morning tab rocks. The interesting thing is I never thought about this before. It never occurred to me that when an asker and guesser meet, unpleasant reactions might occur. 

As a child and teenager I was an Asker. I am a very direct person, so if I have a question or if I would like a favor, I’ll just ask. Maybe it’s because growing up as a child I was the oldest child (I have a brother who is ten years younger then me) and I can recall being ten years old and my mom would send me to her physician to extend her medical leave documents. 

Now, you have to understand I grew up in Romania, under the communist regime. When women had babies they had to return to work after a three months leave.  The only way you could extend that sick leave period is to have a physician who would be willing to write a sick note to you. This worked like this way: you pay for the sick leave note and they extend your “sickness”. So at ten I was going to my mom’s physician with the money in one envelop to extend the sick leave. Why on earth would a mom send her daughter to do all this? This was all corruption. In the communist regime everything was related to corruption. Why would a parent teach your kids at age ten how to engage in corruption? Don’t ask. It was so “normal” to send me everywhere. 

Later in life as an outspoken teen, whenever I didn’t agreed with the “system” I would verbalize it. Some of my teachers were really concerned that one day I might just disappear. (That’s how the communist system worked: if you spoke anything against the system, you just disappeared, had an instant accident etc. – you either with us or we will kill you.)  In 1989 when the communist regime was turned over (I could write an entire book about that – I was there and only God kept me alive) one of my teachers told me I would of never finish high school with my open mouth and rejection of injustice. 

Anyways, to get back to the point, as a teen later when we as a class didn’t want to stay for class (wow we could do that?) I was the one who would just ask the teacher to let us leave. Of course, the next class we always had a test: we either stayed for the class or had a test the next time. Of course it’s easier to learn when someone explains you the lesson, but we could choose to leave. Why would a teacher negotiate with the students? Because, I would have the courage to ask. (And they would teach us what freedom meant) But you have to understand this was natural for me. I didn’t worry about what they might say. Sometimes the teacher would say yes, other times no…for me it wasn’t really a bid deal. I was ready to take the no as an answer. 

Even later in life when I worked I would always ask. Yes, even here in Canada with my broken English.  If I needed a day off, I would go straight to my manager and ask for a day. I didn’t bother with supervisors and all the middle people. I knew at the end my request will be signed by the manager, so I would just go straight and ask. 

When I was pregnant with my twins we had only one car and one day I had a doctor’s appointment at 11:30 am. I walked in my manager’s office and told him: you either give me a car tomorrow to go to the appointment and back or you have to give me a day off. He looked at me and arranged for a car. I worked for a car insurance company so we always had cars when someone needed for claims. But I remember later someone told me, nobody in the company’s history ever did that. I was like: I just needed a car. 

As you see I am an asker. When someone asks me something and I don’t like it, I will say no. I don’t feel guilty to say no, because when I ask and someone tells me no, that is just an answer. It doesn’t hurt my feelings. No is an answer too. That’s how I see it most of the times. The article mentioned above however gave me a glimpse to understand why some behave the way the do when I ask. It never occurred this to me before. Glad I read that article. 

But…in my relationship with God, this was a whole different situation. Because of my relationship with my dad, because he was the authority in my life and he didn’t use his authority well, over the years I developed this “don’t ask dad for anything” mentality. If I asked him something I never knew if he would have a big fight just because I dared to ask. Just writing this article really reminds me that he was the only one I would second guess myself to ask him anything. I am a natural asker, yet with my dad that wasn’t true. I didn’t trust my dad.  I was afraid of him. He abused me; my mom and I lived in a constant terror never knowing when his anger will burst out again. I would rather not ask just to minimize any conniption fit. And I took that mentality in my relationship with God. 

I thought I was a Christian but I never really believed that God would love my anyways. I had to earn my father’s love. If I was really - really good, with great marks then maybe he would say he is proud of me. I can’t ever recall telling me he loves me. He might love me, but he never verbalize his feelings except anger. 

It took God a long time to open my eyes and heart and realize how much he loved me. It took God time and effort to let me know that he is my Father I always wished for, but never had. It took God his son Jesus to somehow let me understand his heart, his love and to build a relationship where I could learn to trust him and ask him too as naturally I would ask others. 

God is the supreme authority and in my life authorities always had a negative impact. My dad and the communist system kind of worked the same way (you either do it my way or you’re out). Unfortunately, even in the church carried this mentality. With broken heart I can say that many of today’s churches have this philosophy: never disagree, never ask questions just follow the church rules and regulations. 

I wrote a separate entry on how God talks to me and teaches me that it's OK to ask. God wants me to ask, because asking reflects a trust relationship as you become vulnerable to ask. I would recommend you to read it. You might realize that God invites you too in a close, intimate relationship with him. Give him a try. Trust him, he will never disappoint you. 

How about you: are you an asker or a guesser?  What kind of instances you had with askers or guessers? How about asking God: do you find that naturally?