Loaded questions

I can't tell you how many times in my life I've been asked, "What's God doing in your life right now?" And most of the time, my response is to temporarily panic as I frantically try to come up with something that will satisfactorily answer the question while making me sound like a good Christian. In this context, "good Christian" means that I am aware of what God is doing in my life, that I'm not resisting him and just letting him do his work in me, and that I am having a positive/optimistic attitude about it.

The thing is, that question is not fair. What am I supposed to say when I don't realize or comprehend what God is doing in my life? What am I supposed to say when I know I'm going through a "spiritual drought" and I'm not seeing God work? There's really only one satisfactory way to respond to that question--to have some kind of an answer. If you don't have an answer, then you are thought of as rebelling against God, or something is off in your relationship with him.

A better (but still not great) question would be, "What is the most recent thing God has done in your life?" That question isn't perfect either, because it still places the respondent under great pressure; however, it does not require the respondent to talk about any specific time, which is good.

Here's an even better option: how about we not ask those kinds of loaded questions? How about we let people open up to us about God's work in their lives when they're comfortable doing so? How about if we do ask those questions, we accept "Nothing," "I don't know," or "I don't want to talk about it," as satisfactory answers? Just a thought.

On a similar note, a similar phenomenon happens when there's a communal moment of, "What is the Holy Spirit convicting you about?" And then people frantically try to find things about them that are wrong, unless something readily comes to mind. Gee, that's a really negative way to live--actively searching for your flaws.