Discernment: Believe

Article from the Vision Vocation Network, by Sister Rosann Ocken, O.S.B.

Unglued. Neither here nor there.

The process of discernment of a vocation can leave one undecided at best and distraught at worst. The path can seem painfully obscure and the destination out of reach. So, how does one go about searching out or discerning what we call a vocation?

Essentially discernment means to distinguish, to sort out. To discern your vocation means to sort through the movements of your heart and unfold the truth of who you most deeply are. In discernment you discover the best way for you to live in this truth.

In my own discernment experiences and in assisting men and women in theirs, I have come to realize there are three basic steps of discernment. I call it the BLT method of discernment. To discern God’s way in our hearts, we must: Believe, listen, trust.

BELIEVE God loves you

The beginning of discernment is a step many forget. You must first believe that God loves you very much! God created you in all your uniqueness, beauty, gifts, and weaknesses. God wants your good, your peace, and your happiness.

But already in this beginning step, we can get derailed! We become overly self-conscious; we feel inadequate; we become un-empowered and lose energy. We stop short of discerning and responding to the Spirit’s call within us when we do not believe that we are good or talented enough or do not believe we are forgiven.

Many of us see our gifts as half-gifts. “You know, I’m really not special; let someone else who is better than I am do that.” This is a sin that we suffer; it’s the sin of not believing God’s action and grace in our lives. It is easy to say, “I believe in God,”—a powerful God somewhere out there far away from me. But our faith falls short when we fail to make the next step, saying, “I believe in God living and working in me.” God desires to use even our “half-gifts” and weaknesses according to God’s wonderful and wise plan.

Thoughts of doubt came easily to my mind when I first began my journey in the Lord, and they can continue to tempt me when I get caught up thinking I must be perfect to serve God faithfully. The danger is that I can become knotted, insecure, and splintered when I focus on myself, my weaknesses, my inadequacies. I get scared at times when I’m faced with my limitations.

Although it is good for me to know my weaknesses, it is crucial to be able to put even these at the service of God. One of my favorite scripture passages is from Saint Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians: “God said, ‘My grace is enough for you, for in weakness power reaches perfection.’ And so I willingly boast of my weaknesses instead, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9-10). Thus it is through struggle that I have come to believe that God desires to work through the whole me, strengths and weaknesses; even my “half-gifts” are gifts to share, and in the power of God, they bear great fruit.

The second aspect of our believing has to do with sin and forgiveness. It seems we can fail to fully accept God’s forgiveness. Oh yes, we know in our heads that God forgives, but somehow we feel it is important to hold tightly to the memory of our mistakes and sins. Even long after we ask for and receive forgiveness, we can be chained by our sins when we refuse to live in the forgiveness we have received. This can greatly affect our freedom to believe in and respond to God’s call in our lives.

Young adults sometimes encounter serious sin before they come to the realization of who they are in God and what they are called to be. Young adults can be misled into abuse of alcohol and drugs and casual sexual encounters that decay their moral life. These can leave deep scars. One difficult situation I have encountered involved a woman who had had an abortion 15 years earlier. She knew that God could forgive even that sin. But somehow she believed she had to continue to punish herself. Her belief became like a ball and chain attached to her leg. God had already cut the ball free, but she felt like she still had to drag it about.

God says, “I take your sins away as far as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103:12). We are called to live as persons fully restored to life; in grace we know that we are beautiful and free to become a new creation in the Lord. “This means that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old order has passed away; now all is new” (2 Cor. 5:17)!