Discernment

Discernment is difficult to define because very few people practice it or even properly understand what it involves. Christians use it as a way of describing the process by which we understand what God wants for us and for our community/world. Unfortunately many people see discernment as the process of finding evidence to support your own idea of what God wants you to do! Discernment is also used by people of other faiths or none and it involves the same process.

I recently came across a description of how discernment is meant to work. It is based on three elements: faith, freedom and facts.

Discernment starts with faith. If it is being used by people of faith then it needs to use all the resources of the faith - the written texts and the sum of human knowledge and experience of the faith over the centuries. There are many resources as all human problems have been considered and written about by people of faith. The original biblical texts often require considerable interpretation to be applied to current situations. It is of course very easy to find texts that support your a-priori position but then that is not discernment! If you have no religious faith then your worldview and ethics condition how you understand reality. This works in exactly the same way as faith.

Discernment will only be properly discernment if it is done in freedom - if people are free from prejudices and have not already adopted an idea for which they are seeking validation. It is very difficult to be truly open minded. But unless we can achieve this state of mind how can God speak to us? We can only do it by consciously and transparently confessing our own ideas and beliefs. Atheists are sometimes the most prejudiced because they have already ruled out many alternatives and ways of understanding that others have accepted.

And the third thing that we need for discernment are facts. There are some unequivocally and universally agreed things called facts. We need to make ourselves aware as best we can of what the reality that we are facing involves and use this as the foundation for discerning the way.

There will not be one way ahead. There will always be many possibilities but humans have an inbuilt inertia and conservatism that wants to travel down known paths rather than facing the new. If we are truly discerning we may only see a short way ahead and be quite scared because we do not have a clear picture of where we are going. But I believe that discernment has always been about feeling our way ahead one step at a time, rather than seeing a clear highway stretching out before us. As John Henry Newman wrote:

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!

Meantime, along the narrow rugged path, Thyself hast trod,
Lead, Savior, lead me home in childlike faith, home to my God.
To rest forever after earthly strife
In the calm light of everlasting life.