BRP 230209
The Power of a Well-Asked Question

Samantha Keller: It had been a hard year for Barbara, and it was easy for her to focus on the negative. A friend asked her a simple question, “What brought you joy in the last year?” As she answered, Barbara found her perspective shifting.

Barbara Rainey: That question forced me to look at what was good and what did bring me joy. All of a sudden, I started thinking of things, and I rattled off, I think, four things.
Samantha: We’ll talk about the power of a well-asked question, today on the Barbara Rainey Podcast, brought to you by Ever Thine Home, where we’re dedicated to helping you experience God in your home. Thanks for listening!

As he often does, Barbara’s husband, Dennis, joins us on today’s episode. He and Barbara wrote a book for couples some years ago, called The Questions Book. Stay tuned and you’ll hear how you can sign up to receive those questions in your inbox.

Let’s listen to this conversation between Dennis and Barbara Rainey on one secret to growing in intimacy — understanding the power of a good question.

Here’s Dennis.

Dennis Rainey: We’re staring at Valentine’s day now. And this creates a lot of anxiety for one of the two sexes. Which one do you think it creates anxiety for?

Barbara: Well, both. See, it creates anxiety for women, and I know you’re thinking men. But it creates anxiety for women because they’re wondering if anything’s going to happen. And, if it is, are they going to like it? Or, if it doesn’t, are they going to be mad?

Dennis: See, men are feeling the pressure to do something to impress their wives or their girlfriend again.

Barbara: I know, I know. That’s true.

Dennis: We have something really, really cool that’s going to be available online, real time, now. It’s called The Questions Book for Couples: 52 Questions for 52 Dates. Now you may think you know your girlfriend or your spouse or your husband, but you may not. But these questions are really, really good.

Barbara: Well, there’s always more to know.

Dennis: Yes, you’ve told me that.

Barbara: You’ve learned that, haven’t you? (laughter)

Dennis: We’ll talk about that more in a minute. Questions are really throughout Scripture. Do you know how many questions Jesus asked?

Barbara: I don’t. Is there a number?

Dennis: 339 questions.

Barbara: Wow.

Dennis: Paul the Apostle asked 262 questions. Now why would Jesus ask a question? Because God can’t learn.

Barbara: He didn’t need to know the information.

Dennis: He didn’t. I think it’s the hook to have a relationship with who you’re chatting with or getting to know. So we’ve got some questions here in this book. In case you think you know your spouse really well, consider asking them this question. It’s my favorite question to ask. I’ll let you ask that question, Barbara.

Barbara: Your favorite question is, “What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?”

Dennis: “...in all your life?”

Barbara: Oh, in all your life? Yes.

Dennis: And the answer is not…

Barbara: Nothing.

Dennis: It’s not “I’ve never done anything courageous.” You have done courageous things, because courage is doing your duty in the face of fear. So I would say, ask one another this question, maybe when you go out on your Valentine’s dinner or your Coke date or if you’re trying to squeeze in some time after the kids have gone to bed. But find a way to ask that question, and then listen carefully to what they say. Maybe ask it in advance, so they have some time to process it and think it through.

We were on a date recently. You want to tell them what happened?

Barbara: I wasn’t surprised by this, but we went on a date to continue the celebration of our 50th anniversary. We celebrated it several months ago, but we hadn’t been to dinner, just the two of us.

So we went out to dinner, at a really nice place, got all spiffied up, and as we sat down to eat and looked at the menu, you started asking questions. And I wasn’t at all surprised, because you’re the questions king. You’re really good at it.

You asked the first question (I don’t remember what it was), and I said, “How long have you been working on that?” thinking that you would say, “Yeah, I started thinking about these yesterday,” or “this afternoon,” or “I didn’t start working on them,” because you can think of questions really fast.

But your answer was…

Dennis: Fifty years.

Barbara: Yeah. Fifty years (laughs).

Dennis: I’ve been working on these questions for 50 years! And you laughed at that point, which was fun.

Barbara: I did laugh. But it’s true, because there is a process of getting to know your spouse that takes a lifetime. It’s not over quickly. Even the same questions asked again the next year will reveal different answers than the year before. So we’re changing, and God is working in our lives and our circumstances change, and there’s always more to know about the person God has brought to you.

Dennis: So the question I asked was, “In light of our 50 years together as husband and wife, what year would you keep if you could only keep one of them?”

Barbara: Yes. I answered and said… I had to think for a few minutes. It didn’t take too long for me to say this. But I answered that I would keep our first year. The reason I said that is because there was something about that first year that was… we were both innocent. We were both very naive in a good way,

Dennis: Right.

Barbara: And we just were having a good time. We were enjoying each other. The adventure of marriage, the adventure of living together, the adventure of just having the freedom to go do what we wanted to do on weekends and after work in the evenings, was just really a treat. And we had so much fun and had adventures and went on little short weekend trips and picnics, just all kinds of things. It was delightful.

It wasn’t until after we started having kids that life started getting harder. And it’s been hard ever since, in many ways.

So I said I would keep that first year, because of the simplicity that we enjoyed together and the carefree delightfulness of that first year.

Dennis: And when I asked the question…

Barbara: I then turned the question on you.

Dennis: Yes. When I asked you that question, I had the same thought, our first year. But then I thought, “No, I can answer that way, now that she’s used that year.”

Barbara: I took it.

Dennis: I’m going to use our 50th year.

Barbara: This year. Which really surprised me.

Dennis: Which is also— you mentioned “hard.” It’s been a hard year.

Barbara: Yes.

Dennis: We’ve got some challenges taking place. I liked it because of the understanding that I have come to appreciate about you. You’ve helped me do that.

You know, we’re commanded in 1 Peter 3:7, that husbands are to live with their wives in an understanding way. That’s not a “one-and-done.” That’s a constant challenge to us men to get to know our wives and to “peel back the onion” and keep peeling and get to know them.

This past year I feel like I’ve gotten to know you in some fresh ways.

After we had that date, we went to some friends’ house, Bill and Carolyn Wellons. Carolyn asked us another question.

Barbara: Yeah, she had found some questions online for the new year, to evaluate the previous year, 2022. Because we were with them for dinner on New Year’s weekend, she said had been thinking through these. She asked us, and all four of us answered the question, “What brought you joy in 2022?” which is a really great question.

It was interesting, not just to hear what everyone said, but it was especially interesting for you and I to hear what the other person said. We both said things that sort of surprised each other, I think. Am I remembering that right? It was a month ago.

Dennis: Right.

Barbara: It was very revealing. What I like so much about that question is that some of us tend to remember the things that are hard more than the things that are good, just by the way we’re wired or our nature or personality. I’m one of those. I look back on this year and I think about, “It was really a hard year!” But that question forced me to look at what was good and what did bring me joy. All of a sudden, I started thinking of things, and I rattled off, I think, four things pretty quickly in response to that question.

So I realized afresh how important it is to think through our lives, to ask questions of one another, to get to know one another…

Dennis: Right.

Barbara: But also to ask questions to evaluate what God is doing in our lives and to look at where He has been, where He showed up, what He’s done, how He’s provided. It’s good to get to know God, and it’s good to get to know one another. It’s good for friendship relationships, too, to ask questions.

Dennis: What was your answer to that question? What brought you joy in 2022?

Barbara: One of the things that I thought of instantly is, I thought about our youngest grandchildren. There’s something about the youngest ones that have been extra fun. I think when our older kids had kids, I still had kids at home. So it was hard for me to fully invest in and appreciate those early grandchildren because I was so preoccupied with my own life and my own world. So there’s been something about these youngest three that it’s just been delightful. Actually, Laura sometimes calls them “joy bombs.” They pop joy!

She’s right. They really are. There’s something really sweet about them. So seeing them in the year 2022 really did bring me joy every time we went to see them.

Another thing that brought me joy is, the Lord really encouraged me over a weekend before Christmas, when three things sort of coincided for me. One was that I spent a day with our daughter Ashley that was just pure joy. Pure fun, pure delight. It was just a gift from heaven to spend about 12 hours with her that day.

The second thing that happened the next day is I got an email with a little video attached from the T. A. of the class I was taking last semester.

Dennis: You’re speaking of the seminary class. You’re enrolled as a student at Dallas Theological Seminary.

Barbara: That’s right. I am. And the class I took last fall had just finished. The class was called “The Story of Scripture,” and I had done a creative project as my final project for that class. And I had gotten this email with a little video attached from the T. A., who gave me really amazing feedback.

Dennis: He was effusive.

Barbara: He was! And I didn’t expect it. I was hoping that I would do well, but I wasn’t expecting that kind of response. It was just so encouraging. I haven’t been graded on anything since I was in college, and to go back to that system where you got good feedback from someone, I just was surprised at what it did for me. It was really a joy.

Dennis: Tell our listeners what you did for that project and why he was so effusive, because I think this is really, really cool.

Barbara: The class was called “The Story of Scripture,” so it was an overview of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. We looked at all the major themes and the major characters and the major story lines that God’s trying to communicate. The project was to summarize the story of the Bible in a creative way. You could do a painting. You could write a song. You could do a dance. You could paint a mural. You could do just about anything you wanted to— that covered all of those elements of the story of Scripture.

I chose to do a poem. At first it seemed somewhat easy. I had this idea, and I really liked it. I thought it was going to be a lot of fun. And it was a lot of fun, but it got really hard before I finished, because the story of the Bible is a big story. And trying to get it boiled down to the essence and keep it so that it was interesting to read took a lot of work. I learned a lot. I’m not an expert at poetry. But boy, I sure learned a lot in the process.

I finished this thing, and then I had my sweet friend Julie, who does all the design work for Ever Thine Home, I had her design a layout so that it read like a book. She did some graphics for it that were just stunning and beautiful. So what the professor and the T. A. saw was a PDF with not just my poem on it, but with these beautiful graphics that worked with it. So it was really a great presentation.

Dennis: Yeah. You listeners can just have a heads up. You’ll likely see this someday in either a digital book or maybe a book that we publish here at Ever Thine Home. We’ll see.

That really leads to how I answered the question, “What brought you joy this year?” I said, “I had a grandson who did well and got married, he and his wife.” That was a great wedding. We had our 50th, and our family got together. But that wasn’t what I thought of when I answered the question.

Barbara: But you said those things.

Dennis: Yes. I thought of just watching you study the Scriptures at Dallas Theological Seminary, online. These were some rugged courses. I mean, books that are “that thick.” We’re talking about inches!

Barbara: I have had some big textbooks.

Dennis: Not Reader’s Digest type books. And I just watched you do that, and I just delighted in seeing your soul ministered to and saturated in the Scriptures and seeing you excel still more. So when you wrote the poem— and I gotta tell you folks, the poem is fantastic! It’s just no downstream poem. You know, there’s a lot of poetry out there. This is extremely well thought through, as you would expect from Barbara Rainey.

But I just watched you excel still more, and I’m watching you use your creative gifts around Scripture in ways that you’ve never done before. I just took great delight in that.

Barbara: Well, thank you. It’s been fun.

Dennis: You’re welcome.

So here’s what we’re going to do, right before Valentine’s here. We are going to create a free— get this— a free subscription to these 52 questions for couples. Fifty-two dates. You can take these questions, you’re going to get them once a week, for a year. You can save them, if you fail to find a time to ask them, you can save them up and take them on a date, put them on little slips of paper, and let your spouse and you pick the one you’d like to ask or pick the one you’d like to answer.

Barbara: Good idea.

Dennis: It could be a lot of fun. But we’re going to offer a subscription to that. So you’ll need to go to our website, EverThineHome.com, to find out more about that. This is going to be an exciting adventure to see how many people sign up to get questions to have better dates. I’ve seen a lot of meals where couples are sitting, looking at their phones, they’re bored with each other…

Barbara: Yes, and they don’t even talk!

Dennis: Yeah!

Barbara: There were people at dinner the other night when you and I went out that were just on their phones the whole time. It’s like, “Why are you bothering to go out together if you’re not talking?”

Dennis: And I get it, because sometimes we arrive at meals, and we’re whipped.

Barbara: Yeah.

Dennis: You know? Absolutely exhausted from taking care of the kids and just need the break to gather our thoughts and catch our breath. But these questions will really help you reconnect, connect. You can use them, as I mentioned, on date nights. You can use them on Coke dates. You could take a walk, and say, “Let’s talk this over. Let’s use this question that’s come in this week to take a walk around the neighborhood if the weather is right,” and interact over it. And listen carefully. Listen to what your spouse says and what they don’t say. Don’t correct your spouse when they answer the question. If they foul up some of the details and don’t get the numbers exactly right…

Barbara: (laughs)

Dennis: Now why are you laughing, Sweetheart?

Barbara: Because I know you’re speaking to me! (both laugh)

Dennis: Just let your spouse talk, okay? This is not auto-correct time. But seek to understand. Ask additional questions. And if you come up with a really, really great question, I’d like to invite you to write Barbara and share that question. And if we end up using it in this book of 52 questions (I’ve got a feeling this could go more than one year. This might go a couple of years). But if we use your question, we’ll send you one of our books. All right?

I just think Valentine’s is a great time to get to know your spouse, to show interest and love and concern. So go to EverThineHome.com and get your free subscription started to 52 Questions for Couples.

Samantha: If you’d like to sign up to receive one question per week in your inbox for a full year, just head to EverThineHome.com/questionsbook. There’s no charge.

You’ll be able to enter your email address there, and we’ll send you one question each week, for 52 weeks. That’s also where you can submit questions for Dennis and Barbara to consider including in the future. Again, it’s all free, and the website is EverThineHome.com/questionsbook.

Well, thank you, Dennis and Barbara Rainey. And thank YOU for listening today. I hope your Valentine’s Day is a wonderful celebration, and maybe you can ask the first of your 52 questions!

I’m Samantha, inviting you back next time for The Barbara Rainey Podcast, from Ever Thine Home.