Discernment

A reader writes:

I have a friend who is not happy in her current job.  She has received a good offer from another company but in a different state.  She wants to do the Lord’s will.  In discerning his will would it be appropriate 1) to lay out the pros and cons of the choices?  2) The choice that leaves her at peace would most likely be his will?  What are good sign posts for determining his will in prayer?  As always, thanks!

This is a difficult question to answer, because I suspect that God works with different people in different ways on subjects like this. However, I can tell you how I would tend to approach the question, and I suspect that the way God works with me on such matters is not that different than how he works with most folks.

There are three general things that God gives us in order to guide us in making decisions:

1) Our instincts

2) Our reason

3) His revelation

The first includes our wants and desires–our emotions and basic physical and psychological drives. This is the most fundamental guide we have. It’s what motivates us to do things rather than just sit passively and do nothing.

The way God has designed us, our instincts provide the basis of human action, and we are to go with this guide unless it is overruled by one of the two higher guides.

Reason includes both moral reasoning and practical reasoning. Moral reasoning includes conscience (Is what I want just or unjust?) and practical reasoning (What are the pros and cons of this? If I go down this path will I really get what I want or will it cost me more than I think it will?)

If making the best application of reason we can to a situation tells us that we should not pursue our desires then we should not pursue them. In man, reason is meant to govern instinct.

But there is a danger here: overthinking. One of the things people often do–especially people of conscience–is to try and overthink decisions, which can lead to paralysis and missed opportunities. While we have an obligation to use reason as a check on any decision of major consequence, if we find ourselves being paralyzed and unable to make decisions then–at some point–we simply have to assume the risk inherent in the decision and "go with our instincts."

These two guides that God has given us–instinct and reason–are gifts of nature. They are things that he has bulit into human nature itself. But human nature is limited and, especially in its fallen condition, it often is not enough. Thus God also gives us a third guide, which belongs to the realm of grace rather than nature: his revelation.

This comes in two forms: the public revelation that he has given to all mankind through his word and through the created order (the laws of God written on the hearts of men) and the private revelation that he makes available as guidance for particular individuals.

The public revelation that he has given takes priority. Private revelation is meant to help implement the principles of public revelation but cannot overrule it (e.g., God will never via private revelation give you permission to sleep with someone other than your spouse; public revelation’s "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" is a moral absolute).

Public revelation interfaces with the two gifts of nature God has given us. We are meant to appropriate public revelation and make it part of our reason and instincts through the education of our conscience. It’s already there to some degree, for the laws of God are written on the hearts of men, but in our fallen condition our consciences and instincts require special training in moral reasoning.

If, in making a particular decision, we’ve done all we can to educate our consciences about what God has said in public revelation, though, that still leaves private revelation.

As the term is commonly used, private revelation refers to extraordinary mystical phenomena like visions that some individuals have (e.g., the children of Fatima), but as I am using the term here it refers to any information that God gives an individual in addition to public revelation.

In the case of extraordinary mystical phenomena, this may take the form of a vision or a voice or sudden, infused knowledge, but this type of private revelation is uncommon, and there is a risk associated with the assumption that God will provide it if asked. The risk is that we will generate a false mystical experience by our own imaginations if we operate on the assumption that God will provide this kind of guidance virtually on demand.

In the case of ordinary experience, many people report experiencing God’s guidance in the form of feelings of confidence or peace or in small coincidences that happen to them in conjunction with prayer.

I know for a fact that God does often give guidance in these manners, but there is a danger here as well of imagining things or fooling ourselves (e.g., rationalizing our desires as a "sense of peace" or seeing coincidences as signs of divine guidance when in reality they’re just coincidences and we’re reading tea leaves).

There is also a danger of overthinking in this area and ending up more confused than we started out.

I think part of the issue can be addressed by keeping the way that this form of guidance works in perspective: Because it is a gift of grace rather than of nature, God means for it to be exceptional. He expects us to make most of our decisions on the basis of the gifts he built into our nature, together with public revelation, and to rely on private revelation only when these prove inadequate.

In other words: Don’t expect God to give you private revelation about which kind of bread to buy at the supermarket. Ordinary decisions like that are meant to be handled by the gifts of nature he has given us, and bad consequences will ensure (like paralysis, confusion, and self-deception) if we expect him to give us supernatural guidance on such matters.

In general, we should use the gifts of nature that God has given us–our instincts and our reason–together with his public revelation–to make most decisions in life.

We should prayerfully ask him to superintend the process of decision-making as we work through it (changing our desires where they need to be changed, guiding us to information resources that can inform our reason, helping us to better understand how principles from public revelation may or may not apply to the question in front of us) and we should ask him to make it clear to us if we are going wrong in our thinking, including via private revelation if necessary.

This much applies to all human beings, but here we come to a point where there seems to be a difference in how God works with certain individuals.

Some individuals report–and I have no reason to challenge their statements–that God gives them many small signs in the form of feelings and coincidences and similar things. Other individuals do not report this.

Myself, I have had a handful of really startling coincidences–usually in conjunction with major life events (like the death of my wife)–that I attribute to unambiguous divine intervention, but most of the time God does not give me the little nudges in prayer that some individuals report (or if he does, I’m too thickheaded to perceive them).

In fact, knowing myself and how introspective I can be, I find it better for me not to try to focus on or hunt for such nudges. At least for me, the way I am psychologically configured, doing so would result in paralysis and endless introspection and the reading of tea-leave.

So I try to make my decisions based on my instincts, reason, and what God has said in public revelation, trusting that he will guide the process and that he’ll hit me over the head (with private revelation if necessary) if I get too far off the path.

I also try to do two other things:

1) Experiment. Whenever possible I try to get more data by experimentation–trying something out to the extent I can and seeing if I meet with success. If I do, it may be a sign that this is the way God wants me to go. If I meet with failure, it may be a sign that he wants me to do something else.

2) Keep in perspective the way God’s will often applies to our lives. Very often people think that–on a particular question–there is only one right answer and that God wills one particular thing for us. If we miss finding that one particular thing, then we’ve missed God’s will, and this thought can generate a lot of anxiety individuals, who naturally don’t want to fail to do God’s will.

But in reality God’s will often does not apply in this manner. There are often a number of options, each of which have good and bad points, that God would be perfectly happy for us to choose. Some options might be better than others, and of course he would like to see us chose from among the best options, but as long as we do not choose an evil option, God is not displeased.

He’s pleased if we choose a good option, and he’s very pleased if we choose a very good option, but he isn’t displeased unless we actually choose evil.

Much of the time we thus don’t need to shoulder the burden of finding the right option or risk God’s displeasure.

This realization can be a liberating experience for many people, and it may help your friend as she makes a decision about what to do regarding the job offer she has.

While taking or not taking a job is a significant decision and the consequences should be carefully thought through, this isn’t likely to be a situation in which God expects your friend to make the right decision or incur his displeasure.

So to sum up, if I were in your friend’s position, I’d try to relax, ask myself what I want (instinct), try to figure out the pros and cons (reason), and then make the best decision I can, while all the while asking God to superintend my thoughts as I work through the decision and asking him to let me know if I’m going wrong.

Hope this helps!