DISCERNMENT
Discernment of God’s will is modeled for us by Jesus, Mary,
Joseph and others in the Scriptures. We
learn God’s ways in the Bible and in life itself!
I n Luke 1: 38, Mary says to
the angel Gabriel: “You see before you the Lord’s servant, let it happen to me
as you have said.” Do you consider yourself “the Lord’s servant”?
Suddenly, St. Matthew tells us, “the angel of the Lord appeared
to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get us, take the child and his mother with you,
and escape into Egypt” (Mt. 2: 13). Are you ready to relocate, if God asks you to
do so?
Carefully watching over the Holy Family in Egypt, an angel
appears to them after Herod’s death and says to Joseph: “Get up, take the child
and his mother with you and go back to the land of Israel,…” (Mt. 2: 19). Are you ready to change course, if the Lord
asks you to make changes in your life?
Ever wonder whether God is asking you, as He did John the
Baptist, to be a “voice of one that cries in the desert,”—no one else seems to
hear you. It’s like being in a desert with no nourishment to carry out what you
believe God is asking of you. And the
walk through “the desert” can be threatening, uninviting, scary. Yet, John the
Baptist follows God’s plan. What about you?
Render to God the things that are Gods and to Caesar the things
that belong to Caesar: answering God’s call is rendering “to God the things
that are God’s” (Mark 12: 17).
Now “Jesus appeared: he came from Galilee to the Jordan to be
baptized by John.” John objects and Jesus says to him: “Leave it like this…;it
is fitting that we should, in this way [John baptizing the Incarnate Word], do
all that uprightness demands” (Mt. 3: 15).
Are you willing, in your choice of vocation, willing to all that
uprightness [honesty] demands of you, even though others do not understand?
Moved or led by the
Spirit, Jesus went out “into the desert to be put to the test by the devil. He
fasted for forty days and forty nights.” Whatever looks like desert to you, if
it is God’s will that you go there, do you realize that it is the Spirit that
will lead you, be there with you and that angels will minister to you? (See Mt.
4:1, 11)
Eye has not seen and ear has not heard what God has prepared for us, I would say,
when we are in sync with God’s will for us (cf.1 Cor 2:9). Mary was so strengthen
in her resolve and filled with joy and
peace that she sang Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55).
Is your soul at peace? Is your soul filled with joy at the choices you
are making?
Now “the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. In
all truth I tell you, unless a wheat grain falls into the earth and dies, it
remains a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest” (John 12: 23).
To what is God asking you to die in order to experience a rich harvest?
Then, overcome with sorrow to the point of death, Jesus says to
His Father: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me.
Nevertheless, let your will be done, not mine.”
Are you willing to say to God what Jesus said?
