"I Don't Know"

The other day my son and I were playing catch in the front yard, first baseball then we shifted to football. Being my son, and the man of God he is becoming he asked me a great question. He asked, “So what are you learning from God lately?” Again, a great question! We continued tossing the rock a bit and I looked at him and in all sincerity said, “that’s a great question, I don’t know; I will have to get back with you on that.” That morning I had written a long response to my time in Isaiah 37. I enjoyed the chapter, gleaned a fuller perspective of who God is, but I had not processed it enough to communicate it. As you know I like to ask such spiritually probing questions. What I am finding is that many respond as I had to my son. “I really don’t know what God is trying to teach me.” This is the typical answer by the way. I believe this evasive answer is based on the following reasons.

1.    “I don’t know means”… “I am not spending time in the word, nor am I being intentionally attentive to God’s voice.” “My life is busy right now, many things are thrown my way, commitments, meetings, scheduling issues, relational issues, important events, Survivor and American Idol are on…I have too much going on.”

2.    “I don’t know means”… “I am reading my bible every day, praying, attending small group, etc. and yet, I am not hearing anything from the Lord these days.”

3.    “I don’t know means”… “I am simply still processing stuff.” “I am feeding, fellowshipping, serving, and studying, but nothing specific comes to mind at this time.”

We put so much pressure on ourselves to have an “answer” to be able to articulate the fact that God is doing something in our lives to confirm or worse feel like we have to justify the depth of our relationship with Jesus. When you think about it we go through various seasons in our spiritual lives. We have seasons of planting, waiting for something to grow, fruit and then there are times when we are in a sense of winter or seemingly dead season. Our relationship with the Lord is not always thriving, it is not always producing fruit, but it should not always be dead either. We will reap what we sow. If we aren’t sowing anything into our soul from God then we shouldn’t expect to produce much, nor should we expect to be able to pour into the people around us. Our relationship with God isn’t just about Him and us; it also reverberates into our other relationships as well. In other words, when you spend time with Jesus you are also doing it for those around you. What you allow to be poured into you, you end up pouring into others. (Sorry for mixing metaphors)

I haven’t answered my son’s question yet, I don’t know what season I am in spiritually, but I am really enjoying the process and what He is planting in me from Isaiah 40 this morning.