9And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9 – 11)
Yesterday we considered how humility can help to ensure that we use the Discipline of Counsel for God’s glory. Today we consider the role that discernment must play.
Discernment
History records that in some ancient civilizations, people would travel for hundreds of miles and spend a lot of their resources to gain access to oracles who could provide them with “wise” counsel. With advances in technology we now have a vastly different scenario. So called oracles are everywhere – on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and other platforms. Many of them want to be “mega influencers” mostly for commercial gain and certainly not to glorify God. Plus, they are often right at our finger tips. Discernment in who you take advice from was never more necessary. If you read the page on Counsel in “The Disciplines Explained” document that can be accessed on our website https://40daysofdiscipline.com/disciplines/, you will find some useful advice on selecting counsellors. I encourage you to read the page when you have some time, but from our passage today I want to draw our attention to the essential weapon of prayer. A couple of you mentioned using prayer yesterday in the great set of commentaries posted, and Paul mentions discerning “what is best” in the prayer above.
Please prayerfully reflect on the passage and answer the question below.
Question:
How much do you pray when selecting advisors, and in addition to prayer, how do you practice discernment?