Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life

by Henri J.M. Nouwen

Discernment, on the other hand, is about listening and responding to that place within us where our deepest desires align with God’s desire. As discerning people, we sift through our impulses, motives, and options to discover which ones lead us closer to divine love and compassion for ourselves and other people and which ones lead us further away.

In Henri’s view, discernment should proceed from a person’s grounded, ordinary life. He did not want people to think that our goal is to escape from our everyday stresses and conflicts. Instead, we should invite the Holy Spirit into our direct experience, into our thoughts, memories, worries, and plans. Instead of seeking a life free from pain and suffering, we should trust that Jesus is present in our pain and suffering. We need to acknowledge our suffering honestly—our loneliness, regrets, sadness, hopelessness, and anger—and then open our hearts to the one who loves us in every detail of our lives. In this way, as Henri often said, our sorrow can turn to joy, our hostility to hospitality, and our loneliness to a solitude pregnant with possibilities. If we experience grief at the loss of a loved one, we should not simply tough it out or forcibly turn our attention to more pleasant things; rather we should let Jesus bear the loss with us. After all, as Henri would say, Jesus lost your loved one, too.

discernment is like hearing a different drummer.

The first task of a faith community is to create sacred time and space, when and where we can allow God to reshape our hearts and lives and communities.

To want to know God’s plan and purpose without regular prayer and engagement with scripture and God’s people is like trying to bake a cake without assembling the various ingredients. Discernment grows out of the life of faith rooted in community.

Discernment performed alone often can become delusion.

No one can discern the signs of daily life alone. We turn to our religious traditions and also to the wisdom others have gained and recorded from their own journeys. That is why most people turn to books and other types of reading when seeking to discover God’s way forward. Reading often means gathering information, acquiring new insight and knowledge, and mastering a new field. It can lead to degrees, diplomas, and certificates. Spiritual reading, however, is different. It means not simply reading about spiritual things but also reading about spiritual things in a spiritual way. That requires a willingness not just to read but to be read, not just to master but to be mastered by words. As long as we read the Bible or a spiritual book simply to acquire knowledge, our reading does not help us in our spiritual life. We can become very knowledgeable about spiritual matters without becoming truly spiritual people. As we learn to read spiritually about spiritual things, we open our hearts to God’s voice. Discernment requires not only reading with the heart but being willing to put down the book we are reading to just listen to what God is saying to us through its words.

I had to come to Peru as a necessary step in the discernment process even if it did not become my new home.

Many Christians are taught that they are unworthy and can never merit God’s love. While it is true that we will never earn God’s love, that does not mean for us to forget that God came in Jesus to give us fullness of life. We can grow into that truth, for it is a mystery of the kind of love that is really beyond all imagination.

At this time, I was entering my fifties, unlikely to ever double my years, and I came face-to-face with a simple question: Did becoming older bring me closer to Jesus? Somehow I had come to believe that growing older and more mature meant that I would be increasingly able to offer leadership. In fact, I had grown more self-confident over the years. I felt I knew something and had the ability to express it well and be heard. In that sense, I felt more and more in control. Yet I found myself praying poorly, living somewhat isolated from other people, and becoming very much preoccupied with burning issues. Everyone was saying that I was doing really well, but something inside was telling me that my success was putting my own soul in danger. In the midst of this crisis, I kept praying: “Lord, show me where you want me to go and I will follow you, but please be clear and unambiguous about it!”