Discernment: Pay Attention, Listen, and Come to the Lord

Discernment: God says to us in Isaiah 55: 3-5:  “Pay attention, come to me; listen, and you will live. I shall make an everlasting covenant with you in fulfillment of favors promised to David.  Look I have made him a witness to peoples, a leader and lawgiver to peoples. Look, you will summon a nation unknown to you, a nation unknown to you will hurry to you for the sake of Yahweh your God, because the Holy One of Israel has glorified you.”

Obviously, three essential principles of discernment are: 1) Paying attention,  2) Coming to the Lord and 3) Listening!  If you are going to pay attention to the Lord in terms of which vocation God is calling you to embrace or which decision to make concerning how to thrive in your vocation be that single, married, religious life or the priesthood, you need to set technology aside for part of each day and pay attention to the quiet voice of God speaking in the core of your being and in the depths of others,  as well!   In the stillness, what are you hearing?

 

In order to listen, one needs to come to stillness, quiet one’s emotions and one’s thoughts to hear God’s whispers or to hear concerns/truths spoken by others.  How do you quiet strong emotions? Find alone time, for one.  Second,   journal: “I am feeling……………………………………because/when   ………….What I need is……………………………..   If I you are dealing with an unresolved problem, ask yourself how you have contributed to that problem and what you need to do to arrive at a solution (not what does the other person need to do).  Record your answers in writing!  Then choose a time to apply the solution that will bring peace to you and others.

When you assume responsibility for a problem, when you take leadership in resolving a problem, when you listen, when you pay attention and come to the Lord, seeking His help and applying that help, “the Holy One of Israel has glorified you.”