It seems that the Holy Spirit has been pressing on me lately to hone in on the topic of discernment as of late, and I have to admit that it somewhat caught me off guard. Having grown up a Christian my entire life, having been guided by sound biblical teaching, mentors, parents, consistent Sunday school lessons, I kind of thought that I had the idea of discernment all wrapped up.
As a mentor for the Wendt Character Scholars, I find that I often learn more than I teach, something I promised my small group on our first night together. This semester's topic is integrity, and we're reading together Steven Carter's aptly named book, Integrity. In the first chapter, Carter provides his working definition for the word in three parts: "1) discerning what is right and what is wrong, 2) acting on what you have discerned, and 3) saying openly that you are acting on your understanding of right from wrong." One of the mentors spoke eloquently about the three parts of the definition, but spent much time focusing on step one, discerning right from wrong. She asked the group to come up with other words that help us understand the not-so-frequently used word. The group came up with the following list:
- filtering
- perceiving
- distinguishing
- considering
- determining
- establishing
- objectively evaluating
- discovering
- discriminating
- judging
The conclusion of all of these words: None of it is simply what I feel. Discernment is not just a gut reaction or a heart-pull in one direction or another. It's not going with the flow or jumping on the bandwagon. It's not assuming that just because a friend made a decision, that you'll come to the same conclusion. No, discernment, I'm afraid, is hard work. It requires a certain knowledge of ultimate right and wrong in order to conjecture right and wrong in specific situations. Not a societal right and wrong, not a familial right and wrong, and ultimate truth of some kind that is indeed where discernment can start. Without truth, where would one start on a journey of discernment? What measure of right and wrong would one seek out?
Some may reason, Well, I follow my heart. Ah, but how much so can we even trust our own hearts? Our emotions, feelings, our guts? There are warnings against this very heart-trust in plain language in the Bible. Jeremiah 17:9, which I will be spending some significant time with this week states, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" So, my heart may want something terribly, but is it necessarily right? I may long for some desire, but it may not be in any form good.
The speaker for the night continued to drive this point home with a quote that I will attribute to her since Google has not helped me locate it from any alternative source: "The heart is an important instructor only after is has been instructed." A heart by itself, as well intentioned as it might be, as much of a good heart it may consider itself, simply cannot discern right from wrong. It can only tell what feels good, what promotes self worth, what satisfies impulses and urges and yearnings right now. But a heart that is first instructed by the Holy Spirit can navigate those feelings, yearnings, decisions with a solid knowledge of unchanging truth. And the more I train my heart, the easier, though I would argue rarely easy, difficult decisions become.
And how does one train their heart for discernment? The Word of God is where we find our truth, the unwavering, unchanging truth of right and wrong, established and inspired by God himself for his people. And when the Word is too difficult to understand on our own, we rely on the Holy Spirit living actively inside us to continue to instruct our hearts beyond our own limited understanding.
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