Discernment

Boy, the theme for this week is definitely discernment. It keeps coming up in conversation. I especially think about all those situations where we risk making people mad for Truth or whatever the "Spirit" makes us think is a greater good.

I am told that the "Spirit" that tries to guide us can come from three sources: the True Holy Spirit, the false spirit (I like to call him "Not-god") or ourselves. Unfortunately, the latter two are really good at disguising themselves as the first.

I think about someone like John the Baptist. The "Spirit" he perceived made him do some very unusual and unprecidented things. The Bible doesn't say he had any big discernment issues about it. He just followed the "Spirit" willy-nilly.

St. Joseph had dreams where angels told him to do some pretty wild things and he just did them. He didn't ask the angels to show him some ID first.

So why is it that discernment doesn't seem to be an issue in the Bible and is a HUGE issue for us today? One theory is that maybe we want so much for God to be moving actively and visibly in our lives now that we tend to race out in front of him. If we didn't we would probably be at home doing the dishes and picking up after our kids. Boring stuff. You know that finding-holiness-in-daily-duties stuff that is probably as powerful as it gets and not much fun. It is much more "fun" to rush out and do a bunch of God-work.

But then I am just speaking for myself on this one. I would love to hear some opinions on this. What do you think?