From “Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life” by Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird
The purpose of discernment is to know God’s will, that is, to find, accept, and affirm the unique way in which God’s love is manifest in our life. To know God’s will is to actively claim an intimate relationship with God, in the context of which we discover our deepest vocation and the desire to live that vocation to the fullest. It has nothing to do with passive submission to an external divine power that imposes itself on us. It has everything to do with active waiting on a God who waits for us.
Finding ourselves in a relationship with God is prerequisite to discernment of God’s will and direction. As in any relationship, there will be feelings of rejection as well as attraction, resentment as well as gratitude, fear as well as love. There will be ups and downs in faithfulness as we discover new things about ourselves and God. In our dynamic relationship with God, we can be sure of one thing: “If we are faithless, God is faithful still, for God cannot disown his own” (2 Tim. 2:13).
Acceptance of God’s will does not mean submission or resignation to “whatever will be will be.” Rather, we actively wait for the Spirit to move and prompt, and then discern what we are to do next. When we see ourselves in a relationship of love with God, there is always something of a lover’s dilemma, a struggle to give and receive, to trust and obey the will.