Historically, I have HATED the process of discernment. Why? Because it has a profound prerequisite: self-love, which requires self-knowledge which, in itself, reveals a second, foundational prerequisite: wisdom. As an often-confused adoptee, such golden gifts weren’t always forthcoming, especially when I was younger.
A common characteristic of adoptees is fear of rejection. One would think this to be self-evident since rejection, at least in broad terms, is what we have experienced even in utero. Although that probably overstates it a bit, people like me have a terrible time in the decision-making process because it includes elements that are not in our wheelhouse. For example, intentionality, which presupposes determination, which presupposes confidence, which presupposes freedom, which presupposes a general sense of acceptance, which presupposes a universe more or less benevolent, which presupposes…well, you get my point.
This process gets ramped up exponentially early in our lives when, perhaps at college, we’re not only trying to figure out where God would have us, but also what it is we are to be about, who we are as people and with whom we are to spend our lives, if anyone. Too much unthinking advice gets bandied about in times like these. One’s friends, equally confused, tell us, “take care lest you find yourself outside the ‘perfect will of God.’” Great, let’s add some guilt along with the fear already in the mix! Worse still are the mating rituals to which we were all to prescribe. They were often rituals designed to actually keep us from really getting to know ourselves let alone another human being since they, too, are built on suspicion, regret, fear and…more fear. Faith as one big ‘what if?’ or ‘should I?’
Well, I am not about to singlehandedly untie the God’s-will enigma in a simple blog post. However, allow me at least to share three gifts of great worth that have helped remove my fear of discernment.
First, as a guy now 50 years old, I have some history of decision-making. All I can say is, God’s got this. My worst decisions, ever, seem to have been redeemed quite nicely in the hands of a loving and particularly creative God. This pares down decisions not to right and wrong but good and better.
Second, it’s not just up to me. The next time some misguided but well-meaning soul comes up to you and says, “I just really feel God told me…,” let your response be, “Interesting. And to who else has God told this?” God speaks to us in community. We can get impressions and experience joy or caution, but it will be through others that the stick of God’s will gets sharpened to a finer point.
Finally, avoid a theology that dictates God’s will as the head of a pin stuck in the center of a bull’s eye viewable from a full moon while facing east on Tuesday afternoons in a leap-year November. Such is not a theology at all but a control mechanism built on fear. If all is grace, then so is our process of discernment.
In the economy of God we do not trip blindly into that dark night. We dance blithely in the arms of a particularly good dancer, unafraid to take the lead and with whom every spin is ultimately in the “right” direction. So dance away, little pilgrim!
With you on the journey, RAR
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What is your greatest fear related to the will of God?
How are you engaging God in community to best discern God’s present and future for you?
Pray this: “Lord of all the universe, my past, present and future are cupped in the palm of your eternal hand. Help me to face them all with courage and confidence, recognizing that you are benevolent and strong and will never leave me to face any of it alone. Lord, since you redeem all my “mistakes” I can relax and simply dance with you in peace and unspeakable joy. Through Jesus, the one leading me on this dance floor…Amen.”
Dancers pic found here, bull’s eye pic found here
Robert Alan Rife
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Hey Rob,
Thanks for this honest post.
I think it is interesting that you bring up the idea that discernment requires self love which begets self knowledge. How true and how sad when our fears (such as your admittance of rejection) keep us from the trajectory of a benevolent God who knows us, loves us and guides us in that place as beloved. But then again, this is a huge part of discernment; not just to be loved but to love ourselves. When you say, “God’s got this”, I suppose you mean that God is guiding us to his will. The problem is that we often have trouble understanding God as pure love (experientially) and that is a huge factor with discernment. Thank God for certain guidelines that help us in that discernment process (that always point us to agape in the process) and for contemplative prayer. Both are huge on the discernment path. And yet in Christian circles, this is still so rarely known.
The one element I neglected to add to this, Val, was our need for insightful, trained anam cara/spiritual directors who, along with our faith communities, help to guide us not just in decision-making but in its prerequisite: self-love in the name of God (Bernard of Clairvaux).
I am glad you added this. Being in communities who give advice out of their own certitudes/false-pretenses/egos can misconstrue the deeper promises that await on the other side of gospel-love-and-letting go. Quaker communities can teach us a lot here and still, there is such a distinctive process of listening to self, God and others. As you say, anam cara/Spiritual Directors are it!!
Spoken by one of the best anam cara I know!
Awe. Thanks Rob.
That I’ve missed it or otherwise screwed it up! Though I know that God is way bigger than the least of my mistakes or the greatest boner of my past 5 decades, I still fear that my imperfectly applied perfect free-will will continue to thwart the infinitely perfect will of a perfect Creator and I will thus continue to walk around in circles out here in the wilderness …
Then, dear friend, it sounds more like a relationship of fear than one of love and secondly, it leaves the lion’s share of responsibility for growth to you when God has placed himself under the same stipulations and expectations required of his own Covenant. God is faithful by definition. On our worst day, we’re still sons and daughters of a covenant-keeping God.
Besides, what’s wrong with the wilderness?
Peace, dear soul
Hi Rob,
I, too, thank you for this honest post.
This got me making some connections to the posts I shared last week on discernment, both of which get at the idea of our discernment being part of a larger narrative and overarching story God is crafting with our lives. It makes me wonder: If we are at a starting place of disbelieving God’s love and our own self-worth and acceptance, perhaps the choices God might be inviting us to make in our various discernment processes would be those that helps us move deeper into those truths and realities.
Absolutely! My own limited experience is that, God is much more interested in who I am and who I am becoming than in what I’m doing and where, even though that is also of profound interest to God. At the end of it all, God is about our God-like-ness than our success at pinning the tail on the donkey discernment practice (again, still important!).