Growing up in church I have always heard the word discernment used, but I can honestly say that I have never looked at the term from this point of view. Discernment, to me, meant that a person had the ability to see past the first few layers of a person or a situation to see the truth behind the facade (if there was one). It was the ability to see the darkness hiding behind the light. Discernment had a slightly negative connotation behind it.
For some reason, some churches teach discernment as seeing the bad through the good, instead of how it should be, which is seeing the good through the bad. “Discernment is about knowing what is really going on, so that heroic daughters can turn what others see as a disadvantage into an advantage. The discerning warrior will know how to turn evil around for good” (pg. 159).
Let’s look back at a much loved scripture…
The good is there, it may be deep under the surface of the situation, but it is there. We are promised good in His Word, but that doesn’t mean that He will lay it in front of our eyes each time. We will have to use wisdom, discernment, compassion and prayer to see it.
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and help them to become what they are capable of being.” – John Wolfgang Von Goethe (pg. 160)
We are a society that almost automatically labels those around us; we label ourselves just as much. Often times these labels focus on our negative characteristics, they focus on what we or others may see wrong on the outside, or on our brokenness. We create labels that we can’t look past…labels that others can’t look past. But there is more beyond those labels.
We as warriors, girls with swords, Godly women, need to look past these labels; we need to see those around us and the situations around us through God’s eyes. I’m not sure why it is so easy for us (people in general) to see the bad in most situations; I do this also. It’s easy to point out the bad instead of searching for the good. But God did not gift us with discernment to see just the bad things in people. He gifted us with discernment so that we could see the good and the bad in them. So we could help encourage the good and help us see ourselves and those around us for what He created us to be.
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Let’s Pray:
Dear Heavenly Father, with the world in the state that it is in, it can be difficult at times to see Your creation through Your eyes. We judge, and we label. We do this to those around us and we do it to ourselves. Lord, I pray that You touch our hearts. I pray that we see people and situations for what You created them to be. Remind us that our job is to lift-up and encourage. I pray that we walk with wisdom and discernment, that we walk in compassion, and in prayer. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
