Happy Sunday! Last Sunday, as part of our small group, we took an assessment of our spiritual gifts. In the past, I've always scored pretty high on discernment. Yet, with this assessment, as I looked at the questions about discernment, I started to wonder. The questions made me realize how little discernment I have. I'm not really good at picking out people's motivations. My judgment tends to be clouded by my experience. My experience is that people aren't as good as they say, or as they'd like to think. But is it the truth? Or is it just my experience?
Lately, I've had a number of folks in my life playing the "God said" card. They'll be saying something about their life and ultimately, that phrase gets thrown out. However, as I watch the things happening in their lives, I hear the words that come out of their mouths, and the attitudes they have, I have to wonder... did God really say?
These people say they have a lot of discernment. It scares me because they are a couple of the meanest people I know. I don't hear a lot of nice things coming out of their mouths. But they think they have God's will all figured out. Is God's will about sarcasm? Is God's will about putting self above others? Is God's will about condemnation? Is God's will self-righteous?
Maybe I have a different version of the Bible. Maybe I don't understand God the way I'm supposed to. The truth is, the more I learn about God, the more I read my Bible, the more I think I don't have discernment at all. I still do and say a lot of bad things. I'd like to say the level of sin in my life continues to go down as I grow spiritually, but the truth is, all that's happened is that I'm more aware of how sinful I am.
Do I hear from God? I'd like to think so. But I'm also painfully aware of the fact that my hearing is distorted by my human experience, my human failings, my human desires, my human hurts, my human fears. It's easy to find a verse or interpret a verse to say what we think we want God to be saying. But is it what God meant by those words? And do they really justify our position?
I don't know. Like I said, as I've aged, discernment hasn't been my strong suit. Instead of answers, I only have more questions. Fortunately, as those of you who read my blog know, that's all part of the journey.
1 comment:
Amen, Dream. I'll second that assesment. :)
And I'll tell you this, the few times I've really known for sure that "God Said" it was because He smacked me over the head with it so that there couldn't be any doubt in my mind that it was Him speaking. And you know, it's usually concerning stuff I'd really rather not do. LOL
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