DISCERNMENT AS A WAY OF BEING
Acts 16:6-10
Romans 12:1-2
Be transformed by the
renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God -- what
is good and acceptable and perfect.
How do you
decide which path to take when you come to a fork in the road? I decided to check this out on the web. When I did, I came across a chain of
restaurants in America called "Fork in the Road". I was also presented with their menus so that
I could choose what I wanted to eat long before I got to the restaurant. That, I thought, was an excellent idea. If you are like me, you will know how much
time we spend trying to make up our minds about what to order. We listen to what others are ordering, we
look around at other tables to see what other people have chosen, and when we
finally decide, we are still not sure, and then change our minds at the last
minute and end up choosing what we always choose. Most people in the world never have to deal
with this problem because they can't afford to eat at restaurants. They have to subsist on the same food day
after day if they have any in the first place.
So we should consider ourselves lucky when we have a choice, not just
about food but about much else besides.
In fact we often have too many choices on offer and some people I know
spend much time weighing up the pros and cons of each before making their
decision.
But how much
time do we give to discerning the will of God for our lives? What choices we should make when we are faced
with decisions about what to do? How do
we discern what is right, good, acceptable. and even perfect, as Paul
counsels? Do we act on impulse without
too much reflection, as I sometimes do, and perhaps some of you as well, then
live to regret what we did? Or do we do
the opposite, procrastinate, unable to make up our minds, unable to make a
decision whether it is in ordering from a menu, buying a dress, or making life
determining choices? If we procrastinate
too much we miss opportunities we should have grasped, and sometimes end up
making bad choices in any case. It is
not a sin to act impulsively or procrastinate; some of us are just like
that. It is who we are. But when it comes to life determining choices,
or choices that affect others, we need are impulsive or procrastinate by
nature, and we need to be more discerning.
Discernment is wisdom in action, whether we make up our minds slowly or swiftly.
I have
benefitted greatly from people of wisdom who have helped me in making life-determining
choices. We all need such friends whose discernment we can
trust, friends who are going to help us make choices that are right and good,
not just pleasing, expedient or convenient.
Friends who can walk with us through good and bad times, friends who are
with us when we come to that dreaded fork in the road where the alternatives
are not always clear, and the right way not obvious. But in the end, we
ourselves have to make the decisions necessary for living our lives. And we have to do so in a world that is
increasingly complex, a world that is in danger of imploding because there is much
knowledge but not a great deal of wisdom or even common sense! That is why we need to exercise discernment,
and practice doing so ir order that it becomes a habit, a way of being
Christian in the world.
St. Paul
tells us that discernment is a gift of the Spirit. It is, we might say, sanctified common
sense. For us as Christians, such Spirit-led discernment is fundamental to
living because we are not just asking what is the right thing to do, or the
right path to choose, but what is God's will for us, for you and me. But if we are to exercise discernment, Paul tells us,
we "have to be transformed by the renewing of our minds." In other words, we have undergo a daily conversion,
a turning around, in order to see things differently, from God's
perspective. And this can only happen
if we daily reflect on the gospel so
that our minds can be renewed by the Spirit, open to the Spirit's guidance, and
do what was discern is God's will for us.
I remember the time when I was thinking about
going into the ministry. I was still
very young so I discussed it with various people whose insight I trusted. But my father, who was not a very spiritual
person at all, took me aside and said "I hope you know what you are
doing. Ministers are badly paid so you
won't make any money!" In other
words, if I knew what was good for me I would not choose to become a minister
or a priest. He wanted me to do a
reality check and not be carried away by impulsive enthusiasm! How
necessary that was. I was being forced
to ask whether this was really what God wanted me to do. And that
was not a question that common sense could answer. It required discernment, not just my own, but
also that of others who had to test my sense of vocation.
The same is
true for Volmoed. If we really want to
make money we could sell Volmoed to some big property developer who could turn the
farm it into an upmarket housing estate.
That would be good business sense.
But those who started the Volmoed Community thirty years ago, who had no
money to speak of, were not buying Volmoed as a business venture. They had a vision of something God wanted
them to do. To create a place that God
could use for healing and reconciliation.
This was not a common sense decision; this was the result of Christian
discernment. It was discovering where
the Spirit was leading them. In the same
way, those of us who have met here at Volmoed this week to think and pray about
the Volmoed Youth Leadership Training Project have not just been planning what
to do, but seeking discern what God wants us to do. Communal discernment lies at the heart of
being a Christian community. This is
what we continually read about in the Acts of the Apostles, as we did today in
the story about Paul and Timothy who, being prevented by the Spirit to turn
east, crossed over into Macedonia and so planted the church in Greece. And what a momentous decision that turned out
to be!
Wherever you
are in your journey of faith, and whatever decisions you may still have to
make, whether large or small, use your common sense, think clearly for that is
why we have brains! But as a Christian
let your common sense be sanctified by the Spirit, and allow your mind to be
renewed so that you may learn to discern God's will for you in the decisions
you make. This requires prayer and
contemplation as it does reflection on the gospel. But it is only in this the way as individuals
and communities of faith that we discern what is good, acceptable and perfect
for us, because it is the will of God for us.
John de Gruchy
Volmoed 8
February 2016
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