“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules,then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
Deuteronomy 30:16-17
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
Discernment is a most important practice, for it gives us wisdom. The ability to effectively choose the best course of action. The ability to take hard questions get through the multitude of choices and find the path. Jesus is “the way.” The early church was also called “The Way.” Not by being the only narrow road, but by being in community with the Holy Spirit and following Jesus in the same way. The early followers. like today, called to come on a mission with Him. In our relationship with the Spirit, our counselor, with each fork in the road, we choose our way. Some decisions may be between life and death, “I have set before you life and death.” or “Choose this day whom you will serve.” (Joshua 24:15)
Or between clear and unclear— We want choices to be made within clear perceptions, if there is no clarity of expression of the truth then it’s hard to make the right decision. How do you know when you have clarity? When you have exhausted all the possible alternatives to choose from? What are the factors involved in clarifying? What would be a good example of this subject? Clarity? Like water? When do you know water is safe to drink? Does it look safe – No, that cannot be right. Visual inspection will always be inadequate. Seeing water’s clarity is not good enough. There are invisible bad things. That’s a good metaphor, seek clarity, if you can’t find it, then faith is forced upon you. Faith is not an option, the truth and our choices may be ignored, but to our detriment.
Or between faith and doubt— The problem with our choices, is that we tend to make them binary. We say you either believe or you don’t. Believer or unbeliever? Is there an in-between-er? I have to confess, I believe a lot, I doubt a lot, I find myself in the middle, I find myself on the good and the bad, on both sides. Here’s my question: Can you have faith, without doubt? Is there some margin around faith, with doubt as a context for my faith? Come on, admit it, you aren’t sure about your position. At least, I’m not as 100% sure as you make yourself out to be. Like Grampa used to say, “You have to put everything through a separator. That’s why we must develop our sense of discernment, to separate the truth from the lie.
Practice will help.