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Thursday Meditation:   A nudge from God

Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery? says the Lord.  Isaiah 66:9
 
Sometimes we seek God’s guidance about a decision, an idea, an action.  We pray, we wait, we ponder, we pray some more – and God sends an answer.  It could be one we anticipated, or it could mean moving out of our comfort zone.  We rejoice, we sense the way forward…we sit with the idea, see it accomplished… we thank God….and then we procrastinate … slowly letting the idea evaporate.  In the end taking no action at all.  Well, this happened to me this past spring and then last week, God sent me a nudge in the following article.  Perhaps some of you also have this experience. So I am sharing the following article from Rob Des Cotes  -  Imago Dei Christian Communities:

“The end of any discernment process will naturally presume some action on our part. That’s why discernment can be understood as “prayer meeting action.” In other words, the final stage of any discernment process will inevitably require of us the courage to act.

But the process of discernment can sometimes lead to a place of paralysis where a person cannot, or perhaps will not, choose a course of action out of fear of being wrong. They have done all the preliminary prayer work of discernment. They have established impartiality in themselves, remaining at an equilibrium regarding all the options before them. They have removed from themselves the influence of inordinate desires or fears that would bias their decision, and they have given their wills over to God’s pleasure as best they can. But in the process of being so open-handed in their disposition, they have perhaps also relinquished their will to act.

We often have a pretty good idea of what God is calling us to do. But, consciously or subconsciously, we also delay the inevitable action that this choice will require of us. Feeling stuck like this – unable to bring to birth that which we have conceived – reveals an underlying disposition that is important to acknowledge in the discernment process. It is the fear of facing the onerous responsibility of making a choice. Through our inaction, we are in fact saying to God, “I don’t really want to make this decision. I want You to make it for me.” But this is where God turns the tables on us. If we have been saying to the Lord, “I want whatever You want,” the Lord now says to us, “Good, but you must now choose what you think I want.”

As discerning Christians we are to assume the responsibility of not only seeking God’s will in our lives but of also acting in the world according to that discernment. In the freedom of faith, it is up to us to choose, with God’s counsel, how to best serve Him. And it is a shirking of that responsibility when our discernment process simply ends with the prayer, “You decide for me.”

Fear of making a choice can keep us paralyzed in an unfruitful state of discernment. This is the image the Lord gives in Isaiah 66:9 – of a baby stuck in the labour process. Discernment is never a substitute for faith. Nor is it an excuse to dump our hard decisions on God. But it does take courage – the final thrust of faith – to bring to birth that which we have conceived in our discernment, and to counter the paralyzing fear that sometimes sabotages the process of “prayer meeting action.”  

 
For reflection: 
1. We often have a pretty good idea of what God is calling us to do. Reflect on occasions when this has been your experience. Have there been other times when decisions have been more vexing?

2. What kinds of negative dynamics and fears have you observed in yourself when you’ve needed to make an important decision?

3. What graces and insights have you experienced in times of discernment that have helped you to move forward with making a difficult decision?

For prayer:
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30:21

Dear Father, we thank you that you’ve promised to provide wisdom when we ask. We thank you also that you know the way that we take (Job 23:10). May we walk in the freedom of faith, knowing that whatever decisions we make as we seek to do your will, you will be with us. Amen.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash