Month: February 2017

Have you ever tried to follow a map and come to a place where you have a choice as  to the route? Have you ever tried to put something together (for me any children’s toy) and had a part that just didn’t seem to be in the assembly instructions? Or, one of my favorites, following a recipe and you have to discern how to increase or  decrease the recipe and there is no guide for it? In each of these moments, discernment was the process of choosing what to do, making a decision.

I am a college professor and have a grant that focuses on vocational discernment for my students. This is the role of an advisor, to help the student decide which direction to take. Any path for the student is okay, but the student should choose a direction  that makes them happy, fulfills them, and that they can spend a lifetime doing. Vocational discernment was originally the process to follow if a person was choosing religious life. When the Protestant reformation came around, the thought was that every person is called to something, hence discernment is for everyone.

Now, I want to be clear that I have already written about the will of God. Discernment is different, it is about choosing a path that fits you. Frost wrote, “The Road Not Taken”, and that is what discernment is, seeing two roads that diverged into the woods and choosing which to follow. Frost, in the poem, took the “road less traveled by” and it made “all the difference.” I  never realized the poem was about discernment.

So, how does this touch me? Every day, we have choices to make. Either choice is okay with God, it is up to us to choose. We have to know that whatever the choice, the Creator is going on the trip with us. Discernment is a daily process that all of us engage in and from which we discover our directions in life. I have experienced discernment many times in my life, from ministry to social work, from social work took CEO, from CEO back to professor. I would love to tell you I always to the “road less traveled by” but that is not true. What I have tried to do is to make decisions that gave me the opportunity for the best life possible. So, dear friends, what ever choice you make is the right one, because you made it. You won’t ever be alone on the trip.

 

TMM

When I was a boy, heck even as an adult, I knew what my mother’s will was for me. She wanted me to be a gentleman, get an education, and behave. Now the behave part was more complex than the first two, it meant don’t steal, don’t lie (she especially hated lies), don’t cheat, etc. The list was not long but it was clear. I have known my mother’s will since I could understand what she wanted for me. I also knew that she loved me, even when she was displeased or mad or sad over what I might have done. She has been gone 14 years and still I can hear her voice and know her will for me.

When I came to Christian life, I was in rather conservative churches who told me, especially as a teenager, that I must seek the will of God for my life and that there was one path for me and that I needed to find it. I was also taught that I must ask God’s will in all that I do. And, if I was outside of God’s will for my life I was basically living in sin and needed to get back into God’s will. It was taught to me as God’s Plan for my life. I bought into this for years, tried to live it out for years…..then have worked even harder to stop trying.

I was miserable in so many ways, trying to get it right and to be good enough to see that one path. It is not that way and if you are trying to live like that, stop. Think about what I said about my mother, I always knew her will. And, I have always known God’s will for my life. Christ said I am come that you may have life and that life in abundance. That is God’s will, that I live. Live joyously, unafraid, doing what I know is the right thing. It is even easier to know…love God, love your neighbor, love yourself. This is the will of God.

Whatever path you are on right now, God is there and you know what is expected, to love. That is Christian mysticism, that the creator of all is at work inside of me and you every moment. The contemplative writer, James Finley talks about God creating us every day and that we are foolish if we think we can ever be separate from God. That is the mystery, that “nothing can separate us from the love of God”. So stop beating yourself up for not knowing God’s will for your life, you already know. Quit searching and live the life you are living right now. Know this though, you are not and never will live that life alone. Always God is there, at work. Christ in you, the hope of glory. So, as the Buddha said, “whatever path you are on, light your candle and follow it.”

TMM