Faith Venture

We have journeyed in our spiritual development through the obstacles and traps of the evil thoughts and truly have brought the attitude of humility into our souls.

Discernment follows–a solid understanding of the will of God in all times, in all places, in all things.

How often have we prayed for discernment consciously or unconsciously skipping the part, “the man who has devoutly destroyed within himself the three has also destroyed the five.” [Interpreted: the three principal evil thoughts are gluttony, vainglory, and avarice, which give rise to the other five lust, despondency, pride, dejection, and anger.]

Perhaps there are times in our lives where we have had a glimpse of discernment and then failed to act. How many boards of Elders or boards of directors have discerned a problem with the leader or CEO and passed on taking action? I’ve been there, done that, have the T-shirt.

Rather than having the the difficult conversation as Henry Cloud would advise, we (I) have taken the easy road with a small comment or even closed our eyes and failed our constituency.

Twice John Climacus reminds us that discernment is the eye–once of the “entire mind” and once of the “heart.”

But we must remember, “A small fire can wipe out an entire forest and a small fault can ruin all our work.”

However, “a discerning man is a discoverer of health, a destroyer of sickness.”

We don’t achieve discernment in order to tear people down but to lift them up.

This entry was posted on July 25, 2018 at 7:05 am and is filed under Disciplines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.