Learning to discern is not just about asking questions in general. There are lots of good questions you can ask. One of the very best is asking why.
The Question Words
As I’ve helped in my son’s first-grade classroom this year, we regularly practice trick words. These are sights words that the kids need to be able to recognize and spell without thought. And this month, we’ve spent a lot of time practicing the question words: who, what, when, where, why, and how.
The question words do a lot more than just mess up the spelling of small children. They also give us context and information.
What tells us the specifics of an event or thing. Who tells us the actor. When and Where give us more details about location and time. How clarifies the means or instructions.
But Why is the deepest question word we have. Why is about the reason. It tells us about motivation and builds or lowers our expectations. This word can move us forward or hold us back. And it can help us connect to the humanity of the who in our question.
The Power of Asking Why
When we ask most of the question words—who, what, when, where, how—we get surface-level information. And sometimes that’s all we need.
But when we ask why, we are diving under the surface. Asking why forces us to explore what’s really going on, what’s happening behind the scenes. We’re trying to understand more than we can see on the surface, which is why it’s a discerning question. So, many times, asking why can protect us from a danger that we can’t initially see.
Sometimes, obviously, why is a rhetorical question. There isn’t really an answer in some situations, and it bothers us. So we throw out the question, knowing we’ll get nothing better than a shoulder shrug in answer.
But when it comes to discernment, asking why is the key to unlocking what’s really going on. And most importantly, asking why is the key to giving a discerning response.
Asking why helps us understand enough about the situation or the person to respond thoughtfully, rather than reactively. It keeps us from overreacting (when we realize someone just made a mistake) and from under-reacting in cases when someone has been truly deceitful or unkind.
By asking why, we can be set ourselves up to be part of the solution, instead of merely another part of the problem.
Examples of Asking Why
Asking why can come in handy in many, many scenarios. Especially when our expectations aren’t met or someone is trying to convince us to do something.
We’re quick to jump on a soapbox and blast the friend or family member who leaves us hanging, but if we stop for a moment and ask why—why they forgot to pick us up, why they changed their mind, why it might have been a good thing for that to happen—we can prevent a major argument and remember to extend grace.
I have tried to write a daily blog post this month. I knew I wouldn’t like get one up every single day, but this last week, I missed three or more days in a row. If you were expecting these blogs, you could get annoyed or even forget to look for the next one. I didn’t keep my promise, after all, and now you’re on to bigger and better things. But if you start to ask why, you’d find out that my week exploded on me, I had too many things on my plate, and the healing process from a small procedure slowed me down more than I thought it would. Why did I miss so many days? Life.
Or think for a moment about the most memorable commercial you’ve seen recently. You brush by hundreds of them a day on TV and radio, the sidebars of sites and social media, and flipping through magazines. But many of us forget to ask why about what we see. Why do they want me to buy this product? Why are they focusing on this promise? Why are they giving me a deadline for purchase? By asking why, you can prevent yourself from jumping on to their buy-me bandwagon, either later or not at all.
Learning to Ask Why
Of all the questions we can ask in the discerning life, why is one of the most important.
You can learn to do it, but it might take some practice. Like all questions, it requires thinking first and reacting second. That takes discipline. And you will make mistakes.
But the benefits of asking why far outweigh the costs of learning to ask it. It can save your relationships and prevent you from being sucked in by someone who doesn’t actually have your best interest at heart. Which is always a good thing.
