1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.” This episode talks about discernment and how important it is. It also talks about how God doesn't just have one right path for each of us. We need to make a decision and then look at the fruit it produces to know if it is a good or bad decision. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Look At The Fruits
1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.”
The teaching at my prayer group meeting yesterday was about discernment. I thought it was interesting because that is similar to the topic of my episode yesterday. While I was writing yesterdays episode I remembered something my spiritual director told me about discernment, but the episode was already long enough so I didn’t go into it. However, when I heard this verse today and then I heard a something similar in the teaching, I knew that the Holy Spirit wanted me to share it with you. I think discernment is something that we all struggle with. Discernment in the way I understand it is when we need to make a decision and we sit with the Lord and ask Him what He thinks we should do. We give ourselves time to pray about it and really consider what God would want us to do. This is my understanding of it anyway.
The problem is that we don’t always get a clear answer. We learned from Father Mike in yesterdays episode that if God wants you to change direction in your vocation or your purpose in life, He will make that clear to you. However, the realization that He has been bringing me to, or at least I think He has, is that He doesn’t have a huge opinion on every little decision we need to make. We say that we just want to know what He wants us to do and we will do it. Have you ever said this? I know I have. Lord, just tell me what to do and I will do it. I have prayed that so many times. And you know what I usually hear? Crickets, I don’t hear God telling me His grand plan for my life. While I was in with my spiritual director this week what came to my mind is that there is not just one way to live this life. There isn’t a certain checklist of things that we need to do and if we miss one our lives will be over.
I don’t know about you, but I am a perfectionist and a rule follower. I never knew this before but it has really become apparent in these last few years. I want to do things the right way. I want to do things perfectly. I don’t want to get it wrong. What I feel God has been trying to teach me over these last several years, maybe my whole life, is that there is not just one way to do things. For instance, maybe you make mashed potatoes by peeling them first, cutting them into small pieces and boiling them. Maybe you don’t peel them and you boil them with the peels still on. Maybe you don’t cut them into small pieces and you boil them whole. No matter how you boil these potatoes, you will still be able to make mashed potatoes. I don’t know if that is a great analogy, but you get my point. There is more than one way to do things. Life is like this as well. If it is a huge decision in your life, I believe what Father Mike said yesterday is true. God won’t ask you to make that decision without making sure you have all the info. However, what about the millions of decisions that aren’t huge, but aren’t that small either? How do we make those?
I believe we should still bring them to prayer. If we invite the Lord into the smallest of our circumstances He will be more a part of our lives. We will turn to Him more and we will turn to Him sooner because we will be used to involving Him in our every day life. If you are not sure what to do, be intentional about sitting with the Lord and asking Him what He would do if He were in your circumstance? Or, maybe you ask Him what He wants you to do? What your conversation looks like, is up to you, just sit down and make sure to have one. Make sure you allow time to sit and listen to God and see if He has an answer for you. It is unlikely to come in words, however, it may come in a feeling, a thought, a memory, a story, or some other way He has of communicating. Pay attention, not just in that moment but over the next couple of days and see what the Lord says. A friend said today that she usually hears things days later and sometimes it comes in the words of someone she is talking to. If we are looking for answers we tend to find them.
However, sometimes we don’t hear an answer. I was talking with my spiritual director about this and she said that sometimes God lets us make the choice. Sometimes it is not super clear which way He wants us to go. Remember, God put the desires in your heart. He wants you to fulfill those desires. So, if you are unsure as to which way to go, pray and really think about what you want. Then step forward in faith knowing that God can use anything for good. Once you make a choice, pay attention to how that thing is making you feel. What my spiritual director told me is that we should look at the fruits that come from our decision. This is what the verse above is saying as well. “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.” Say the decision was to accept a new job. How does that new job make you feel? Do you feel happy and joyful or do you feel anxious or angry? Is it helping your home life, or making it worse? Is the overall impact of this new job good or bad? Hold fast to what is good and abstain from what is evil.
I have a really good friend who was trying to decide if she should take a job or not. The job sounded really good, she felt she could really make a difference in the kids lives and she felt it was the right job at the right time. A few months into having the job, she realized the job wasn’t producing good fruit. Her co-workers complained a lot and gossiped all the time. She felt stressed and anxious when she left work. It got to be where she didn’t really even want to go in to work because she felt the coworkers made it an uncomfortable environment. Because she loves the Lord and spends time with Him, she was able to see that this wasn’t what He wanted for her anymore. Soon after she started to feel this way, another job opened up at her place and she prayed if she should apply. She wasn’t sure what to do, but after going in for the interview she felt so much peace. She was excited for this new opportunity. Now, we might be tempted to think that she made a mistake by choosing to take that first job. We could say, the fruit was bad, so it was the wrong choice. However, it felt great at first and she might not have found out about this other job if she wasn’t already there working at the center.
God is so good. We worry so much about making the wrong choice, but when we do we are making God smaller than He is. He is bigger than our mistakes. He does not just have one path for us to go down. I believe, as long as we are loving Him and our neighbors then He give us some leeway. He lets us make choices, fulfill our desires and as long as we are paying attention to the fruit that our decision are producing He leaves it up to us. So, step out in faith, trust that if you are spending time with God, He is leading your way, even if you don’t have that certainty or clarity you are searching for. Know that there is not just one right path that you must adhere too. God trusts you to make your own decisions sometimes, “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we just want to do what is right and by doing so we get stuck wanting to have the certainty and that clarity. You are calling us to step out in faith. You are calling us to trust that you are leading us and that if we are heading down the wrong path you will help us do a course correction. Lord, we know you are big and powerful and we don’t mean to make you smaller by thinking you can’t handle our missteps. We know that our life is in your hands and that you want us to succeed even more than we want to. You love us more than we could imagine and because you are so loving, you let us make our own choices. Help us to look for the fruit Lord. Help us pay attention to the fruit our choices are producing and change paths if we are producing bad fruit. We love you Lord, you are awesome. We are so grateful for you and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you on Monday. Have a blessed weekend!