… I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days … (from Deuteronomy 30)
Tonight in our campus ministry fellowship we discussed the idea of discernment, but with a twist.
Usually when we’re in a discernment or decision-making process, we ask open-ended questions: “What does God want me to do?” “What is the Spirit trying to say to me?” “What should I do?” (or even, “Why aren’t my prayers being answered?”)
Those are great questions, but maybe not always the best questions to be asking. Sometimes a question can be too big.
So we started with two words, Yes and No. We talked about how we say “yes” and “no” in the transition from high school student to college student to college graduate. Along the way we outlined a discernment process that I just had to write about, because I think it’s great (open-source theology!) By the way, keeping up spiritual disciplines (prayer, Christian fellowship, Scripture reading) is a given at all points in this journey.
Here’s the process we outlined:
1. Begin with a very general question that you can answer with a yes or a no. For example, a sixteen-year-old might ask, “Do I want to attend college at some point in the future?” Those who were present tonight, by virtue of being college students, had answered “yes” to this question even if they hadn’t realized it.
2. Apply filters to this general concept: filters of time, money, goals, personal values, or any other filter that’s important to you. One student talked about wanting to join the military at some point in his life, but not wanting the environment of a military college. So within his overall “Yes” to a college education, he ended up saying no to the military college and yes to the Reserves.
3. Realize that you might spin in circles for a while, when you are in between steps in the process. Some students talked about being so excited to attend college, but then spending some time trying out different majors or different groups of friends. The trying-out phase was a little frustrating, but important for getting to the next step.
4. Whittle down the number of “yes” answers into something manageable. The students talked about making choices of how to spend their time while in college, and that fact that they have had to let some things go.
5. Think about a “yes” within a “no.” For example, a musically gifted student talked about the decision to say “no” to a degree in music while saying “yes” to music as a hobby and a source of personal enjoyment.
6. Finally, evaluate your decision in terms of how it affirms life. To the best of your ability, think of how this decision affirms you as a child of God, with all the gifts God has given you. Even if your decision may result in some temporary stress, does it ultimately build up the life that God gave you? To borrow a phrase from John McCall, a missionary in Taiwan, does your decision rest within “the divine yes”?
What do you think?
Pastor2K 