From “Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life” by Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird
What do I mean by seeing the world the way God sees it? This is important for discerning – for seeing rightly. In the Gospels, there are many examples of Jesus not giving a direct answer to questions put to him by his disciples and others. (For example, the mother of James and John asks whether her two sons might sit one at the right hand and the other at the left hand of Jesus in his kingdom, and Jesus responds, “Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” [Matt. 20:20-23].) He does this not because he has no patience with them but because their questions are the wrong questions; they are not the questions that live in God’s heart but belong instead to the fearful, anxious world of those who do not know who they are.
As we come to know, more and more, that we belong to God and are part of the life of God, we also come to know the heart of God. Some of our frantic questions – What must I do? How can I get what I need? – fade away when we come closer to God’s heart. Then we begin to hear the questions and see the struggles that we encounter from that sacred place. In God, we gain new ears to hear, new eyes to see, and new hearts to discern what is really happening. Concerns that, in the past, completely occupied our minds lose their meaning. Distinctions that seemed so very important to us dissolve when we look at them from our vantage point in God. What seemed a reason to fear no longer holds us in its power; what made us travel far and wide no longer drives us. Instead, our being is filled with a deep desire to see God’s will be done on earth as in heaven.