Mary Selzer - 25 Questions God Asked: Discover the Answers that will Change Your Life

Mary Selzer paints pictures through her writing. The personal stories and biblical insights provide framework for powerful insights about coaching and the power of questions in the life of Christ, and the life of coaches and clients. Her artistry engages and challenges the reader in ways that births transforming insights. Thanks for sharing the journey with us, Mary!

Edward Hammett, Professional Certified Coach, Church & Clergy Coach, President of Transforming Solutions, LLC

What makes a well-timed, well-framed question so powerful? (You did catch that I just asked a question, didnt you?) Questions capture our attention and promote discovery. They give an open invitation to response, exploration, and interaction. As a coach and mentor, I never cease to be amazed at how wrestling with a good question can move people forward toward their goals and dreams. But when GOD Himself is asking the question, that takes the significance and potential to learn, grow, and change to a whole new level.

In this wonderful new book, 25 Questions God Asked: Discover the Answers that Will Change Your Life, Mary has done us all a favor by exploring some of the powerful questions asked by an all-powerful God. She weaves compelling illustrations, helpful insights, and important cautionary tales that reveal the ramifications of those God-questions to our 21st century lives.

If, like me, you long to know God better and to know what He wants for and from you, put this book on your must-read list.

Dr. Jodi Detrick, Speaker, Coach, Adjunct Professor, Author, The Jesus-Hearted Woman: 10 Leadership Qualities for Enduring & Endearing Influence

Look no further! You could not purchase a more timely book, other than the Bible, than 25 Questions God Asked. We now live in a society that is no longer literate in the Bible in the way it was thirty years ago or more. One of the major barriers to people coming to Christ or being discipled is that they have a number of questions. What better way for ministers, coaches, and seekers to address this challenge than by reading a book of key questions and answers that the Lord provides.

Dr. William Jeynes, Missionary/Evangelist; Professor, California State University, Long Beach; Senior Fellow, Witherspoon Institute, Princeton

In her new book, 25 Questions God Asked: Discover the Answers that Will Change Your Life, Mary Selzer illustrates how God, who truly knows our potential, uses questions to encourage reflections on our past and dreams for our future. While many are seeking for more answers, maybe those answers will emerge through divinely directed questions. God may have planted gifts and talents that are as yet undiscovered. Read this book and let the journey begin.

Alton Garrison, Assistant General Superintendent, The General Council of the Assemblies of God

Mary Selzer; a deep believer, masterful coach, and engaging writer; has created a masterpiece by taking the Creator and Masters method of creating awareness and inspiring change and putting it in the book for us. This deep study of these 25 powerful questions provides insight into the original and most effective coaching methodology that exists. He created us and knows our blueprint. Taking these questions into our own lives and professions enables us to remove the scales from our own eyes and opens the eyes and hearts of others. Asked in charity, they can do nothing but move us all onward and upward. We all must study this book!

Colonel (Retired) John Moore, Professional Certified Coach, CEO, and lover of our Lord

2016 by Mary K. Selzer

Print ISBN 978-1-63409-853-3

eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-68322-060-2
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-68322-061-9

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Unless otherwise noted, scripture is taken from the H OLY B IBLE , N EW I NTERNATIONAL V ERSION . NIV . Copyright 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NIV 1984 are taken from the H OLY B IBLE , N EW I NTERNATIONAL V ERSION . NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Published by Barbour Books, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

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To Lou, my husband
Rachel & Josh and Sarah & Jimmy, our kids
Zoey, Ava, Evelyn, James, and Juliette,
our grandkids and the joy of my life.

Every quest involves questions. The Christian quest is an adventurous journey toward life in God, toward knowing God and loving God, toward becoming the transformed kind of person who finds life with God natural and satisfying. Indeed, each of us who has found and is finding life in Christ is on a questa journey that does not cease with our first embrace of Gods gift of grace, but continues as we move onward and upward as C. S. Lewis so poetically put it. Our quest is fueled by questions: questions we ask and questions asked of us.

Unfortunately, the church has too often ignored the wondrous power of questions. We have tended to prefer telling over asking, delivering over discovering, commanding over questioning. Certainly there is a need for strong delivery of truth, but there is also a need for compelling questions. Powerful questions are like sharp tools in the hands of a masterful craftsman. Questions can draw out wisdom, clarify truth, and even reveal ignorance.

As a professional coach and trainer of Christian coaches, I have seen firsthand how questions can help people see things differently, understand more deeply, act with intentionality, shift perspectives, and reach all kinds of goals. Coaches use many skills, but perhaps none is more crucial than asking powerful questions. While coaches embrace questions as a preferred way of engaging others, coaches are not the only ones who use questions to promote progress.

I teach coaching in a seminary setting, and often our coaching students are surprised when they realize how often Jesus asked questions and how many questions are asked throughout scripture. Once you have eyes to see the questions, you, too, might be surprised to realize how often God uses questions to fulfill His mission. Since scripture is Gods perfectly revealed narrativethe truest story ever toldwe should pay attention to the fact that scripture contains so many questions. The questions in the Bible not only move the scriptural story forward, but can also move our own stories forwardour personal story, the story of our church bodies, and the story of the world.