written by Daryl Fleming

Discernment. I do not naturally have it….and I have many life-stories to prove it! Discernment, according to the New Testament use of the word, can be a verb, noun, and adjective, and always has to do with distinguishing, separating out so as to investigate by looking throughout objects or particulars. In other words, it’s about examining, scrutinizing, and questioning. It is the great art of being able to determine the excellence or defects of a person or thing.

I lack all of this. I am trusting, gullible, and, as I Corinthians 13 says, I “hope all things!” But, from buying the wrong car to opening my life to the wrong people, I have lacked discernment. As a young girl this disturbed me. I felt vulnerable and ignorant and rather foolish. Discernment is so vital, so necessary, so protective…and I don’t have it! I have friends who have it. I have family members who are over-flowing with it. I have teachers and mentors and leaders who have it in abundance. Then there is me….void of natural discernment.

I love the glorious passage of the Bible that describes the special endowments of supernatural gifts that are given to us when we get tucked into Christ at our spiritual birth. I Corinthians 12 tells us that:
“There are distinctive varieties and distributions of endowments or gifts, extraordinary powers distinguishing certain Christians, due to the power of divine grace operating in their souls by the Holy Spirit…. (one of these gifts being) the ability to discern and distinguish between the utterances of true spirits and false ones….All these gifts, achievements, and abilities are inspired and brought to pass by the same Holy Spirit, Who apportions to each person individually exactly as He chooses.”

He didn’t choose me. Not for discernment, anyway. He chose to give me other gifts, but as far as discernment goes, I’ve still got nothing.

So what is a girl to do?

As with all of my life, it still comes back to the faith walk that He loves and demands. I lack, He supplies.

“But God…” I love that phrase! I lack, but God doesn’t. Ever.

Ephesians 3 is an absolutely hair-raising passage of hope for those like me who lack so obviously!

“But God – so rich in His mercy! Because of and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which He loved us, even when we were dead, slain by our own shortcomings and trespasses, He made us alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ; He gave us the very life of Christ Himself, the same new life with which He quickened Him…for we are God’s own handiwork, re-created in Christ Jesus, born anew…”

He gave us the very life of Christ Himself! Christ in me is very discerning. I don’t practice discernment as a spiritual gift. It doesn’t flow out of me that way. I certainly don’t practice it naturally; it isn’t there. But He practices it. I have been surprised by Him so many times as He has deftly navigated me through dangerous waters. If you have watched the Pixar movie Finding Nemo I am Dory in the dangerous web of jellyfish. I don’t discern the danger always, but He leads me through and out with relatively few stings! A discerning person may not have been there in the first place – but God covers even my mistakes. But God.

This does not mean I can take advantage of Him. Hebrews 5:14 tells me that I have some responsibility to this lack in me. As I continue to grow in Christ, and as I continue to ingest the Word (which, by the way, is “quick to discern” Hebrews 4:12), I find that my “senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good and noble and what is evil and contrary either to divine or human law.” Practice and training of my senses and mental faculties has grown me along the way. I no longer swim among the jelly fish. Obedience also helps. I may not naturally get it, but I can obey the Holy Spirit as He prompts me. Obedience protects me.

Then I discovered the lovely protective nature of the community found in the Body of Christ. I place myself in the path of people that do have the gift of discernment. I listen to them. I hang out with them. I think they benefit from my gifts too. I certainly do from theirs.

Ultimately, I listen to the whisper of Christ in me. He keeps me
steady. I ask Him to discern for me because I don’t have it in me to logically separate out and distinguish or investigate by scrutinizing and questioning.

I also ask Him to help me with I Corinthians 11:29 where we are asked to discern our own condition, to try ourselves, to judge any evil in us before the Lord. I may miss something, but He will gently reveal it to me. It may be a whisper in my soul. It may be through the Word that is quick to discern. It may be through a friend. What He asks of me, He will supply. I trust Him for discernment any way He wants to equip me with it!

Great God, our lowliness takes heart to play
Beneath the shadow of Thy state;
The only comfort of our littleness
Is that Thou art so great.
Then on Thy grandeur I will lay me down;
Already life is heaven for me;
No cradled child more softly lies than I, -
Come soon eternity!

-Frederick Faber, 1814-1863