Me:  Prodigal is that a friend of yours?  I can’t tell if he is smiling or growling at you.

 

Prodigal:  No, he is a friend, but people tell him all the time that he looks mean.

 

Me:  Sometimes we have to look beyond appearances and discern with the spirit.

 

Prodigal:  Please explain more of that.

 

Chuck Swindoll discusses discernment in his book Growing Deep in the Christian Life

 

Discernment includes the idea of sizing up a situation or a person correctly.  Spotting evil that is lurking in the shadows.  Sensing something that is missing.  But it doesn’t  always have to do with matters of evil.  Discernment also helps us sense truth and good.  You discern when you are with certain individuals or listening to certain teachers that the person has character.  Or that there is a lot of depth in that person’s life.  You detect that the person is presenting only a bit of what he or she really knows.  You sense that there is a lot more behind the counter.

Looking back at my earlier years once again, it is clear now that I didn’t bother to cultivate discernment in my life.  I was young.  I was impressionable.  I was caught up in the emotion, the momentum, the brilliance and persuasion of the teacher with hundreds of others.  Maybe it is more accurate to say thousands.  I silenced questions of doubt.  I ignored a few inner reservations.  Though in my heart I knew some things weren’t right, I rationalized around them.  I bought the whole package.  My reservoir of knowledge was growing…but at the expense of my discernment.

 

 

 

Philippians 1:9

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org