For When You Don't Have All The Answers

"What do you feel God is trying to teach you right now?" That was one of the questions posed to a table full of amazing women recently and I immediately felt my face burn knowing that I would have no good answer. 

What was God trying to teach me? I could barely remember how I had even gotten to the meeting, and I was being asked to evaluate my current spiritual state and give a report at what in the world the God of the universe might be trying to teach me in this season of survival and sacrifice.  Now, the heart of the wonderful woman asking wasn't a harsh one. There was no judgment in her question, simply curiosity and an invitation to wonder, think, assess. 

So, here was my dilemma...do I straight up lie to save face? Or embellish? Do I give some scripted "Christianese" answer or do I be the real, honest woman that I am often not brave enough to be?
The truth is, I didn't know all the women at the table all that well and we are in leadership of sorts, so shouldn't I have some great, inspiring answer to bestow upon them? In that moment, I knew I needed to just be real and I'd like to say it was born out of some conviction to be more vulnerable and available to people, (that would be a great lesson, no?), but really I was just too tired to try and save face.

I admitted to these awesome women that I really had no idea what God was trying to teach me. I mean, I didn't even know what I was cooking for dinner.  We talked a lot about the seasons we were all in, some similar to mine and some very different.  I was able to honestly say my not knowing was not from a lack of not trying or not listening.  There were lots of suggestions and ideas about how to seek out those lessons and encouragement to not be discouraged if I wasn't 100% sure of God's plan for my life at every moment. The important thing was the seeking, the asking and the growing.

If I continue to strive to grow and learn, keep moving forward and being sensitive to the fact that God may show His plan in the least likely of places, I am moving in the right direction.  It is so easy to feel lost at sea when weariness seems to slow the days and blur them together.  The wonderful, beautiful truth is we don't have to always have the perfect answer. We only need to keep our hearts open and our eyes focused on Jesus and one step at a time, He will get us where we need to be.

Sometimes what God is trying to teach us is that we really have no idea what He is trying to teach us and that we need only depend more fully on Him each day...and not be afraid to admit it.