FROM GOD OR FROM ME?

     Have you ever wondered whether that wonderful idea, or maybe an answer to a decision you have struggled to make, or even an unfulfilled vision is from God, or maybe just a desire you have to make something happen? We all may at different times, even after deciding a particular path to take, second-guessed our decision by thinking, “Is this really God’s will, or is this mine?”

      If we are seeking to understand and practice the gift of discernment, maybe we can examine what Ruth Haley Barton calls “the building blocks of sound discernment practice.” In her book, “Pursuing God’s Will Together,” Barton begins by defining spiritual discernment as, “a process that takes place through the Trinity.” We must have the basic belief that Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit so that we can understand the teachings of Jesus and the deeper things of God, while we sort out his will for our journey. 

      The second building block, according to Barton, is the desire to respond to Christ through Jesus’ spirit. This means we move beyond intellectual reasoning and human effort to a dependency on spiritual intervention in our decision-making. “We begin to rely on the Spirit to help us learn to distinguish between willingly asserting our own wishes, to willingly surrendering to God’s desires.” 

      We also must believe deeply in the goodness of God, so deeply that we can “trust God with the things that are most important to us.” This building block allows us to hold the things we love the most, loosely, in an open hand that is outstretched to God. We must practice the belief that we say we have, that God is good; that what he says in Jeremiah 29:11 is true in the deepest part of our soul. “I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for your harm.”

      Another basic building block for the practice of discernment Barton says “is the conviction that love is our ultimate calling—love for God, love for self, love for others, and love for the world. We know that this, for sure, is the will of God.” As we seek to know God’s will, it is important to keep what love requires in front of us and foremost in our thinking.

      And finally, when God’s will is revealed to us, we must be committed to carrying out that will. This may be the most difficult step to take in the discernment process. However, Jesus says in Matthew 12:50 that if we do his will, we join his family becoming his brothers and sisters.

      Why is discernment so important to a disciple of Jesus? When we seek and obey God’s will, we are forming an intimate relationship with Jesus. We are providing the Holy Spirit a channel to work grace and transformation in us and through us into a world that is desperate for hope and a new beginning. When our will becomes God’s will, God begins to shape us into the disciples and the church he intended from the very beginning.

Rev Tim McConnell, Long’s Chapel UMC, September 8, 2013