Discernment: A Christian Perspective

One of my readers contacted me outside this site. She forwarded me information on discernment that is used in a women’s prayer group she belongs to. This group has grown from 8 or 9 to around 45 women. They have been meeting for 18 years.

With humor, she goes on: “It’s Christ centered! How else could 45 women get along.”😊

Several years ago, this reader moved 30+ miles from the location of this group. She is around my age … like me, doesn’t like to drive at night … but she does because “it has helped my faith, trust, and love for God grow so much.”

I imagine whatever your spiritual orientation, you will find common ground in these passages.

Biblical Passages on Discernment

• I Kings 3:9: Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind to govern thy people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to govern this thy great people?
• I Corinthians 2:14: The unspiritual human does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him/her, and s/he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
• Philippians 1:9: And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment.
• Hebrews 4:12: For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
• Hebrews 5:14: But solid food is for the mature, for those with the faculties trained to practice to distinguish good from evil.

What stood out for me in these passages:

• the need to discern between good and evil in order to govern
• the need to be “spiritually grounded” in order to be gifted with and understand “spiritual discernment”
• the need for love to abound in order to gain the ability to discern the meaning of love
• the need to be attuned to higher values in order to discern whether or not one’s thoughts and intentions are of the heart which represents love
• the need for maturity to be able to discern the difference between good and evil

Discernment & Discernment of Spirits

My reader also sent a leaflet with the above title. I found it supportive of my concern about the lack of discernment I see in our politicians, the media, and many of our leaders. The leaflet’s first paragraph:

Webster’s New World Dictionary defines the verb discern as, “to separate a thing mentally from another or others, to recognize as separate or different, to perceive or recognize, to make out clearly.” Thus discernment is the ability to perceive and recognize differences and to see clearly. Interesting, one definition of maturity is the ability to perceive differences between two similar but different circumstances, situation, or solutions. We need discernment if we are going to grow in maturity.

The leaflet goes on to look at two different ways of approaching discernment …

• how we learn to discern the good
• guidance from some of my favorite passages of scripture: I Corinthians 12-14 which emphasize:
  • the varieties of gifts of the Spirit
  • the need for Unity in diversity.
  • encouraging an earnest desire for the higher gifts
  • pointing to a still more excellent way … the way of love

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant and rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends … When I was a child I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man/woman, I gave up childish ways. … So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. … Make love your aim …

~(selections from I Corinthians 12-14 with inclusive translations)

A Tall Order

These passages of scripture point us to the tall order of Penthouse Wisdom & Vision… leading with love and humility in the service of the well-being of others … what I see our Founding Fathers aspiring to as they held forth a wise perspective of “self-evident truths” and envisioned a country of “We the People.”

Here are a few passages from my reader’s leaflet which I believe exemplify this higher wisdom:

• a predisposition of the heart … that grows in discernment of the true, the good, and the beautiful exemplified by humility, wisdom, and love
•  the necessity of listening to others when making decisions, including a power greater than our own, evaluating how our heart reacts, recognizing when and how the opposite of truth is operating, coming to a deep peace in the discernment process
• discerning when we are being tempted by immature thoughts of gaining power over others, by something that just doesn’t feel right in difficult situations, by being obsessed with false values and worldly rewards that stray from the goal of others being blessed
• trusting that all things will work out to the good even if the circumstances don’t appear to

 The leaflet ends with a prayer to Jesus:

Give us discernment so that we can be free, loving, and wise disciples.

 I end with my prayer to the Loving & Wise Spirit of the Universe:

 May people the world over awaken to the higher vision offered by Jesus’ followers in Corinth … to the courage of religious leaders who walk this higher path of wisdom. Grant to leaders in every walk of life the wisdom to grow in maturity along with the ability to heed the guidance offered by my reader and her prayer group. May they grow in their ability to walk the path of love so that “we the people” may be blessed. Give every person who has the privilege of voting discernment in choosing leaders who exemplify the faithfulness to grow in maturity and wisdom in order to fulfill their very high calling to spread love, beauty, truth, and goodness for the benefit of others. Amen  

And your prayer is …