When I was half way through my freshman year of college, I felt this strong tug in my heart to leave the school I was at and transfer. After a lot of prayer and visiting different campuses, it came down to two colleges, but I just couldn't decide. I didn't want to make the wrong choice so I simply became paralyzed. I still remember a conversation my dad and I had, where he told me that once we have done the hard work of discerning, sometimes God is simply calling us to act with the next faithful step. Whatever that may be.
The problem with some of our choices today is that we do a lot of setting before we do discerning. We make a decision and ask God to bless it instead of asking if this is who God is calling us to be.
For the last several weeks we have been discussing the spiritual joy that is found in practicing spiritual disciplines together, and it all climaxes with this week's discipline - discernment, or perceiving God's will.
We have talked about the spiritual discipline of thankfulness - of thanking God in a way that helps us notice things that we didn't notice before. When we are thankful for our community and the ministries happening around us, discernment asks us to pray about if we are to join in something that is already happening or start something new.
We looked at the discipline of fasting, or setting aside something in order to pick up intentional and focused prayer. Fasting allows us to listen to God in new ways, and hear the will of God for us.
Last week we focused on Sabbath, which allows us to slow down and takes away our need to be productive in order to trust God more fully. We cannot discern what God is doing if we do not trust God enough to act.
Paul writes that if we live by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit. How can you seek to discern God's will in your life and do you trust God enough to follow where the Spirit leads?
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