HOLY DISCERNMENT: UN-COMPLICATING GOD’S WILL FOR OUR LIVES

Photo courtesy of the author.

“God has a perfect plan for your life.”

“You need to pray for your future husband. God has someone set aside for you.”

“Make sure you pray about it before you accept that job. It may not be God’s will.”

“If you’re not following God’s plan, your life is never going to be fulfilling.”

These thoughts echoed in the recesses of my brain as I sat in the darkened chapel at the Order of Saint Helena at 4:00 am one day in early 2018. I’d spent most of my life believing that God’s will was rooted in a very tangible set of steps I was “supposed to” take, and over the previous couple of years, I had started to struggle with what the “right” next step should be. 

I thought I was supposed to go to grad school and get my master’s degree in costume production. But even with scholarships, I couldn’t afford it.

I thought I was supposed to become a professional counselor, only to find myself facing a new diagnosis of General Anxiety Disorder and being thrown into panic attacks at the smallest things.

I thought I was supposed to get married, but I never felt that ineffable something that you’re supposed to feel when you meet “the one.” 

I thought I might do a double master’s degree to get my MDiv and MSW, but I was once again faced with financial roadblocks and no real sense of what I would do with that combination once I finished the programs.

I had started to explore the idea of vowed religious life a few months before, and all I could think while sitting on the cold tile floor that morning was, “I don’t know what to do.”

I was afraid of another disappointment, of wishing so hard for something and believing that I had found the right turn on the secret road map of my life that God kept hidden from me. I was afraid that if I couldn’t figure it out, then it would mean that I was not good enough at following Christ. I was afraid that I would fail God.

Tears began to burn at my eyes as I turned all my sadness, anger, and confusion into prayer. 

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what you want. I’m so tired. I’m so scared. Just...tell me what it is you want me to do! What do you want from me??”

Silence. My tears flowed freely. I felt so alone, so lost, so - 

Just be with me.

“What?” I gasped.

Just be with me.

Anxiety trickled slowly away, replaced with awe. That wasn’t me saying that. It was an echo in my soul that stopped me in my tracks. I caught my breath and whispered tentatively, “What do you mean?”

Just be with me. 

Well, that wasn’t very concrete. “Ok...but how?”

The echo again. Just be with me.

And something changed within me in that moment. 

As I sat, soaking in the overwhelming love and grace of my Creator in the hours before sunrise, I began to really listen to that echoing in the core of my being. Just be with me. Could it really be that simple? Could all the details of which degree and what job and which person just be distracting me from the truth of God’s will?

I’m certainly not the first person to wrestle with vocation and discernment. Thankfully, one of the blessings of being “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,” as scripture puts it, is having access to the wisdom of a multitude of spiritual leaders. Oswald Chambers said on the subject of discernment, “To be ‘in the will of God’ is not a matter of intellectual discernment, but a state of heart.” Parker Palmer, in his book Let Your Life Speak, talks of vocation “not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received[...]it comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.” 

But it is Sister Joan Chittister, OSB, in her book Called to Question that really broke through the barriers I had in my own struggle with discernment. She writes, “Indeed, the learnings about the self may be simpler than we think. It may be little more than that final blinding recognition that the circumstances of our life are much less important than what we learn about what it means to become fully human because of them.” 

In our quest for God’s will, we seem to be very good at trying to make the thing we’re seeking into a god. Our limited, micro-level view of life distorts our dream job, ideal partner, or other lofty goal into the source of fulfillment for our lives - a source that will ultimately leave us wanting. That is not to say that having these goals or dreams for our lives is wrong or bad. But it is when our focus shifts from the eternal to the temporal that we begin to lose our sense of self, of purpose, of fulfillment. It is then that we forget what it means to be human. 

I had found myself scrounging for worth in my title at work, the letters behind my name, and the people I dated. If I could climb the ladders of the corporate, academic, or romantic world, I could get closer to God. But what I was beginning to realize was this: I didn’t have to climb. That echo in my soul had been with me the whole time. I had simply forgotten to listen. God was already there with me. 

I had been convinced that God looked like the American dream, a checklist of accomplishments, instead of the One who spent his time on the margins of society trying to teach us what it means to be human, to be made in the image of God - trying to teach us what love is.

Discernment looks a bit different to me now. I still listen for that echo. But I also ask myself some questions, based on the two commandments given by Jesus in the gospels. Am I loving God? Am I loving my neighbor? Am I loving myself? Jesus said, “On these two commandments hang all the laws and the prophets.” (Matt. 22:40, NRSV) Or, as Bishop Curry likes to say, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” How am I showing the sacrificial agape love of Jesus in my actions as well as my words? If I truly see God in all things, all my actions must be centered in love on these three levels. 

God’s will, put in simplest terms, is for us to love. Once we understand this, our questions of discernment transform into questions of how best to love. What is the best way for me to love God, my neighbor, and myself? The answer will differ for everyone, but to approach any decision with these questions is to seek God’s will for our lives. I have found myself asking these questions more often, almost as a mindfulness practice, cultivating a consistent awareness of God in the everyday moments. 

Since entering religious life, these questions have become inextricably bound up in the vows of religious life of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Again, Joan Chittister really hit home for me the core of these vows, reframing them as “generous justice, reckless love, and limitless listening.” These vows ask me to sacrifice my worldly desires in order to make way for the love of God to work in and through me. When I give up material goods and monetary gain to give and share everything with my community - not just my physical possessions, but also myself - that’s love. When I stop looking for romantic or sexual partners in order to expand my scope of connection with others and draw the circle wider, that’s love. When I give up my ego-centric wants to listen and discern the needs God calls me to address in myself, my community, and the world, that’s love. 

Of course, not everyone is called to show forth the love of God through religious life. But we all are capable of connecting with the love that is God and bringing that love into our relationships. That love runs like a thread from God to us to everyone we encounter and beyond, stitching together Creator and created in an unbreakable union. If we follow God’s call to love, I believe we can each help usher the kin-dom of God a little closer, letting God’s will be done on earth as in heaven.