In the gospel of Mark (8:22-27) there is a story of how people from a village brought a blind man to Jesus for healing. The story unfolds with Jesus taking the blind man by the hand and leading him beyond the village. “He put spit on the man’s eyes, laid hands on him and asked, ‘Do you see anything?’” The man responded that he saw people, but they looked like trees walking. So Jesus had to lay his hands on the man’s eyes once again and the man recovered his sight with 20/20 vision!
This is a great story of how we come through the process of discernment. The Spirit often invites us to leave our comfort zones so that in our discomfort we can be detached enough from our illusions and certainties to notice how we feel within, so that we can learn to trust God’s grace and light.
Much like the man in the story, we are never alone. God is present with us as we encounter new events, circumstances, relationships, and experiences that are part of our search for what God desires of us.
Discernment is a way of deep listening and deep questioning that cannot be forced. There is no “drive-thru” for discernment; there is no App for quick and easy answers; and there are no flashing lights with bells and whistles pointing to the right path! Often, we find clarity and peace a little at a time – we get “blurry-clear” insights and begin to notice more and more God’s purpose for us with each step on our journey. We are invited to notice signs in our everyday lives that God seems to put in our path to point to the way that will give us peace and joy. This movement is often slow, so as to allow God to gently take us by the hand and to touch our hearts again and again, so that our seeing becomes a vision of how we are being called to a new way of being and becoming.
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