Good and bad discernment

Discernment is a term much abused. It has a spiritualized usage and I notice how much it is abused when someone uses a lot of energy to justify a course of action or a decision in their life. For example, a young woman returned to Canada and during her absence her family moved from Montreal to Toronto. After a month she announced God wants me to be in Montreal. However listening carefully all I could hear was I want to go back to Montreal. Too often discernment is thinly disguised language for my decisions. I think we ought to be more honest about what we are doing or desiring. God-wants-me-to-be-happy-and-therefore-I-should thinking is unfair and dishonest. Another young woman shared she had three job offers and a desire for a working holiday in Australia, I advised which would take you closer to God and then which felt like the greatest gift from God.

The spiritual gift of discernment is of good and bad spirits, which was clearly absent in the first case and sought in the second. Discernment involves firstly attitudinal stance: Are you or the person wanting to go the God direction or is there a clash of wills? This already acknowledges that there are moral norms to be acknowledged such as loving and respecting God and others, but the energy used to justify a decision betrays a pre-decision already made, which is denying openness.

Discernment is an issue of freedom. Dean Brackley writes "Authentic freedom is about responding to reality under the guidance of the Spirit." It is clearly not a case whether we should feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or visit the sick or those in prison but rather who? If we lay aside our desires we can either make a practical decision or follow the Spirit.