X-Ray Questions

From How People Change by Timothy Lane and Paul Tripp
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

X-Ray Questions (originally formulated by David Powlison in his course Dynamics of Biblical Change and used in the book by his permission)

1) What do you love? Is there something you love more than God or your neighbor?

2) What do you want? What do you desire? What do you crave, long for, wish? Whose desires do you obey?

3) What do you seek? What are your personal expectations and goals? What are your intentions? What are you working for?

4) Where do you bank your hopes? WHat hope are you working toward or building your life around?

5) What do you fear? Fear is the flip side of desire. For example, if I desire your acceptance, then I fear your rejection.

6) What do you feel like doing? This is a synonym for desire. Sometimes we feel like eating a gallon of ice cream, or staying in bed, or refusing to talk, etc.

7) What do you think you need? In most cases a person's felt needs picture his or her idol cravings. Often what we have called necessities are actually deceptive masters that rule our hearts. They control us because they seem plausible. They don't seem so bad on the surface and it isn't sin to want them. However, I must not be ruled by the "need" to feel good about myself, to feel loved and accepted, to feel some sense of accomplishment, to have financial security, to experience good health, to live a life that is organized, pain-free, and happy.

8) What are your plans, agendas, strategies, and intentions designed to accomplish? What are you really going after in the situations and relationships of life? What are you really working to get?

9) What makes you tick? What sun does your planet revolve around? Where do you find your garden of delight? What lights up your world? What food sustains your life? What really matters to you? What are you living for?

10) Where do you find refuge, safety, comfort, and escape? When you are fearful, discouraged, and upset, where do you run? Do you run to God for comfort and safety or to something else? (To food, to others, to work, to solitude?)

11) What do you trust? Do you functionally rest in the Lord? Do you find your sense of well-being in His presence and promises? Or do you rest in something or someone else?

Part 2 Continues on...

ht: Justin Taylor