Discernment of God's Will: Asking in All Sincerity

According to the Ignatian method, step 3 of discernment is asking the Lord in all sincerity to know what decision is the one that will lead you to  the end for which God created you. That end, of course, as mentioned in step one of his discernment process,is to work out your salvation and to give highest praise and glory to your Creator God and to do so in the use of your talents, educational background, and all that makes you the person you now are and are capable of becoming. If you choose the direction you are now considering or make the choice you are facing, will you be more and more like Christ (your salvation) and thus give highest praise and glory to God or will you mar those opportunities? If you choose to be a mother/a spouse, a woman religious, a single person; if you choose to marry this person and not this other, if you make this choice instead of another, will you be putting yourself in a situation that will best enable you to become your best self, to fall in love with God, first of all, and, second of all, to grow and mature in love humanly speaking with yourself and others? You want to sincerely know that the choice you are about to make is in accord with God’s holy will for you.  In effect, you are sincerely  asking the Lord to show you what He wants of you and you are sincerely saying with Jesus in Gethsemane: "Lord, Your will, not mine be done.”

Source: Discernment of Spirits by Warren Sazama, SJ, National Religious Vocation Conference, Chicago, IL 60615.