April — The Art of Becoming
Day 109 — 19 April
What If the Best Thing You Can Say Is a Question?
“And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?'” — Luke 10:25–26 (NKJV)
We have spent the better part of three weeks building the case that becoming means learning to enter another person’s world with everything you carry: your identity, your initiative, your empathy, your fluency, your patience, your love. And in nearly every entry, the emphasis has rested, understandably, on what you bring into the room, on the treasure you hold, the word you speak, the service you render, the presence you offer. Yet there is a dimension of the art of becoming that works in precisely the opposite direction, a dimension in which the most powerful thing you can do for another person is to draw something out of them rather than pour something into them.
Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever lived, and He possessed the answer to every question anyone could ask, yet one of the most striking features of His ministry was how frequently He responded to questions by asking questions of His own. When a lawyer stood up and tested Him with a question about eternal life, Jesus, who could have delivered the most comprehensive theological answer the world had ever heard, instead turned the question back to the man who asked it: “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” The Greek verb ἀναγινώσκω (anaginōskō, meaning “to read,” “to recognise,” or “to know again”) carries a force that goes beyond mere literacy, because ἀναγινώskō (anaginōskō, “to read/recognise”) in its fuller sense means to re-examine, to look again at something familiar and perceive what you previously missed. Jesus was inviting the lawyer to return to a text he already knew and discover the answer that had been sitting within his own reading all along.
The second question, πῶς ἀναγινώσκεις (pōs anaginōskeis, meaning “how do you read it?” or “what is your reading of it?”), deepens the invitation further. The interrogative πῶς (pōs, meaning “how” or “in what manner”) tells us that Jesus was interested in the lawyer’s interpretation, in his process, in the way he engaged with the text. This was a question that honoured the lawyer’s intelligence, acknowledged his years of study, and created space for him to reach the answer through his own reasoning rather than receiving it passively from someone else’s authority.
The Teacher Who Drew Out Rather Than Poured In
This is a pattern that runs throughout the Gospels with remarkable consistency. When the Pharisees asked Jesus whether it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, He asked them to show Him a coin and then asked whose image appeared on it (Matthew 22:19–20). When Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ, the moment had been preceded by a question Jesus posed to His disciples: “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). When Jesus encountered the man at the pool of Bethesda, He opened with a question that seems, on the surface, almost unnecessary: “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6). In every instance, the question performed a work that a direct answer could never have accomplished, because the question required the listener to engage, to search, to position themselves as active participants in the discovery rather than passive recipients of information.
The Greek verbs ἐρωτάω (erōtaō, meaning “to ask,” “to request,” or “to inquire”) and ἐπερωτάω (eperōtaō, meaning “to question further,” “to ask pointedly,” or “to interrogate”) appear dozens of times across the Gospel narratives, and the sheer frequency of Jesus’ questions should reshape how we understand the art of becoming, because it reveals that one of the most effective ways to enter another person’s world is to ask the question that helps them discover what is already inside them.
The Person Who Asks Better Questions
Think of the person in your life, perhaps a friend, a colleague, or a mentor, who possesses the rare gift of asking questions that make you think more carefully, feel more honestly, and see more clearly than you would have managed on your own. They sit across from you at a coffee table and, instead of offering their opinion on your situation, they ask something that stops you mid-sentence: “What do you think you are actually afraid of?” or “If you could do anything without worrying about the outcome, what would you choose?” or “What would the person you most admire do in this situation?”
These questions carry a particular kind of power, because they communicate something that advice alone can never convey: I believe you carry the answer within you, and I trust you enough to help you find it rather than handing it to you. The person who asks a great question is performing an act of respect that surpasses what even the wisest counsel can deliver, because a great question says: your mind matters, your experience matters, your capacity to reason and reflect and discover is something I honour, and I am willing to sit with you in the space between the question and the answer for as long as the discovery takes.
This is becoming through drawing out, and it operates alongside becoming through pouring in as the complementary dimension that completes the art. There are moments when the person in front of you needs your wisdom, your insight, your declaration of truth spoken in its appointed עֵת (eth, “season”), as we explored on Day 107. But there are equally important moments when the finest gift you can offer is a question that helps them reach the truth for themselves, because truth that is discovered carries a permanence that truth merely received sometimes lacks, and the person who discovers their own answer owns it in a way that secondhand wisdom, however accurate, can struggle to reproduce.
Jesus knew this. He could have told the lawyer the answer in a single sentence, and the sentence would have been flawless. Instead, He asked, “What is your reading of it?” and the lawyer, searching his own knowledge of the Torah, arrived at the answer himself: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart… and your neighbour as yourself” (Luke 10:27). The answer came from the lawyer’s own mouth, drawn out by a question from the Teacher who understood that the most powerful learning happens when the student discovers rather than merely receives.
The Greek γίνομαι (ginomai, “to become”) that has anchored this entire month takes on a new shade of meaning in this context, because becoming for another person sometimes means becoming the person who asks the question that unlocks what is already stored within them. You become the mirror in which they see their own reflection more clearly. You become the catalyst that accelerates a discovery they were already moving toward. You become the space in which their own voice, their own reasoning, their own wisdom finds the permission to speak, perhaps for the first time.
You carry answers, and there are rooms that need them. But you also carry questions, and there are rooms that need those even more, rooms in which the most loving thing you can do is to sit across from another human being and ask, with genuine curiosity and patient attention, “What is your reading of it?”
Declaration
I carry the gift of questions that draw out what is already planted within the people around me, and I offer them with genuine curiosity, deep respect, and a patient willingness to sit in the space between asking and discovering. I trust the intelligence, the experience, and the God-given capacity of every person I encounter, and I honour them by helping them find their own voice rather than replacing it with mine. My becoming includes the art of drawing out as much as the art of pouring in, and I discern which is needed in every moment with the same wisdom that guided Jesus when He turned the lawyer’s question back upon the lawyer himself. I am curious, attentive, and genuinely interested in the minds and hearts of those around me. Today, I ask the question that someone needs to hear, and I trust the answer that emerges from within them, knowing that the God who already placed truth within every seeker is the same God who placed the question within me.
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