Sometimes We Ask Too Many Questions

Sometimes we simply ask WAY too many questions.

What I mean by that is that sometimes we ask questions of leaders - and they feel like they have to provide an answer - and that answer isn't something we like or want to hear - and we could have avoided the whole situation if we simply hadn't asked the question in the first place and just gone ahead and done what we believed was right.

Let me give an example from the world-wide Church Handbook of Instructions training from November 2010.

Pres. Beck talked about a RS President who was standing outside a home, pacing back and forth, concerned that she hadn't heard back yet from the Bishop about what she could do to help the sister and family in the home. She had left a message for him asking him what she could do.

Pres. Beck related that her advice to this sister was, to the best of my recollection: 

You have authority in your position as a President. Do what you feel impressed to do - and then go to the Bishop and tell him what you did.

I know that the culture of the Church in the past hasn't supported that advice in many cases, but it was said more than once in the training that organizational presidencies in the Church need to be empowered to seek and act on their own inspiration for their own stewardships - that they need to "ask less" and "do more". It also was said that the Bishop (and everyone else) needs to realize that the Bishop will not receive all the revelation for the ward - that all who have official responsibilities within the ward may receive revelation for their organizations (and families, in the case of parents) and provide honest, open, candid input in any councils in which they participate. Again, a statement that, in some important ways, we need to ask less and do more.

Again, sometimes we ask too many questions.