Discerning What God is Asking of Us Daily

Discerning What God is Asking of Us:  Every day, we face the challenge of doing God’s will, even in the smallest decisions of the day.   Doing God will involves discerning which spirit to follow: the evil spirit the spirit that opposes God’s will for us, that wants its own way, not God’s, or the spirit that empowers us to obey the will of our Creator. In today’s first reading, Acts 5: 27-33, the Apostles are brought before the Sanhedrin and are questioned by the high priest, accusing them of teaching in Jesus’ name when human beings have  ordered them to stop doing so.  Peter and the Apostles are unafraid and firmly state that they must obey God, not human beings. They keep their focus on the Lord Jesus, whom God has “exalted…at his right hand as leader and savior to grant Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins.” Peter and the Apostles will not stop giving witness to this truth that has become their truth.

Our faith, like that of Peter’s and the Apostles’, will be tested. It is in the testing that our faith is strengthened, that we learn the art of discernment. However, we are very capable of ignoring the good spirit and going our own way, thus weakening our faith. God does not ever give up, however. Whether we follow Jesus as our leader and savior does not diminish God’s desire to lead us in the right direction. God does not falter. We do.

Discernment includes discerning the decisions we make each day: those by which we followed the good spirit’s lead as well as those by which we followed the spirit within us that opposes God’s way for us. When we choose the latter, we are often choosing the easiest road to follow, the easiest decision to make or we make no decision which, in fact, is a decision!  We are usually then avoiding sacrifice and hardship. “It’s too hard,” we complain. “I’m not up to it,” we argue.  “I’m too young, too old, too this, too that; I’m not smart enough, pretty enough, educated enough; I’m scared; I don’t have the skills and am unwilling to develop them” and so on and on and on as we make one excuse after another and another and another!

Where do you find yourself in discerning the will of God for you in the smallest and not so small decisions that you face?