Intuition and Discernment

Gregg’s Reflection

I began reading about Daniel Goleman’s writing on emotional intelligence in the ‘90’s. It put great stock in what our intuition, what our gut tells us. Being a strong thinker, I had not been attuned to what my gut tells me. In the two decades since, I have come to realize my gut is the source of intuition. It is also where I experience a visceral affirmation of the path I’m on. It is more connected to heart than mind.

Discernment, on the other hand, flows out of being rooted in God, the fruit of practices of prayer, meditation, contemplation, stillness and silence. Ruth Haley Barton tells us:

The habit of discernment is a quality of attentiveness to God that is so intimate that over time we develop an intuitive sense of God’s heart and purpose in any given moment.

Together, intuition and discernment have led me back to God’s faint path time and time again, no matter how far I strayed. Every fall, as I walked around the lake at my friends hunting place where our Christian Businessmen’s Retreat met each year, I reflected on God’s faint path.

Often, when I am on coaching calls, Spirit will bring me a question, Scripture verse or quote that is appropriate for the moment. Much of my coaching work involves helping pastors discern where Spirit is leading. For a deeper look, check this post on Discerning God’s Will & Voice.

Journaling Prompts

Think of times when you ignored a gut feeling, and regretted it. How have you found paying attention to your gut helped you steer clear of bad situations? When the data does not give a clear answer on which way to go, how does your intuition help you decide the path to take? What is the role of intuition as you decide whether to trust a person or not?

Scripture

So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?

1 Kings 3:9

Teach me knowledge and good judgment, for I trust your commands.

Psalm 119:66

For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

Proverbs 2:6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Who is wise? Let them realize these things. Who is discerning? Let them understand. The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.

Hosea 14:9

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

Matthew 10:16

Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:16

I will keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

Ephesians 1:17

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.

Philippians 1:9-10

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to you.

James 1:5

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing the soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

Ancient Writings

The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.

St. Augustine

Where there is charity and wisdom there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility there is neither anger nor worry.

St. Francis of Assisi

See that I am God. See that I am in everything. See that I do everything. See that I have never stopped ordering my works, nor ever shall, eternally. See that I lead everything on to the conclusion I ordained for it before time began, by the same power, wisdom and love with which I made it. How can anything be amiss?

Julian of Norwich

Modern Writings

To discern means first of all to listen to God, to pay attention to God's active presence, and to obey God's prompting, direction, leadings, and guidance. When we are spiritually deaf, we are not aware that anything important is happening in our lives.

Henri Nouwen

I can see no other way for discernment than a life in the Spirit, a life of unceasing prayer and contemplation, a life of deep communion with the Spirit of God. Such a life will slowly develop in us an inner sensitivity, enabling us to distinguish between the law of the flesh [ego] and the law of the Spirit [soul].

Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life, p. 170. 

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.

Wendell Berry, The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky's Red River Gorge

There is a deeper voice of God which we must learn to hear and obey. It will sound like the voice of risk, of trust, of surrender, of soul, of common sense, of destiny, of love, of an intimate stranger, of our deepest self. It will always feel gratuitous, and it is this very freedom that scares us. God never leads by guilt or shame! God leads by loving the soul at ever-deeper levels, not by shaming at superficial levels.

Richard Rohr, A Spring within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations, p. 141. 

Wisdom is not the result of mental effort; it is a way of being—a way of being whole and freely open to a knowing that is more than rational thought alone.

Richard Rohr

It appears in a moment. An immaculate conception. A divine flash of light. An idea that would otherwise require labor to unfold suddenly blooms in a single inhalation.

Inspiration is the rocket fuel powering our work. It comes from the Latin-inspirare, meaning to breathe in or blow into. For the lungs to draw in air, they must first be emptied. For the mind to draw inspiration, it wants space to welcome the new. The universe seeks balance. Through this absence, you are inviting energy in.

To create space for inspiration, we might consider practices of quieting the mind: meditation, awareness, silence, contemplation, prayer, any ritual that helps us fend off distraction. For the artist, inspiration is a breath of creative force drawn in instantly from outside of our small selves. Inspiration is out of our control and can prove hard to find.

Epiphanies are hidden in the most ordinary of moments. A dedication to showing up on a regular basis is the main requirement. One indicator of inspiration is awe. How can we move past desensitization to the incredible wonders of nature and human engineering all around us? Train yourself to see awe behind the obvious.

Rick Ross, The Creative Act, a Way of Being, p. 127-130

Part of the monk’s path is cultivating what I call an organic spirituality, one where we practice deep listening so we can attune to what is next, where is the energy and grace calling us in this moment of my life and can I release my grip on the path I think I should be taking enough to hear this new possibility?

Christine Valters Paintner

The habit of discernment is a quality of attentiveness to God that is so intimate that over time we develop an intuitive sense of God’s heart and purpose in any given moment. We become familiar with God’s voice—the tone, quality and content—just as we become familiar with the voice of a human being we know well.

We are able to grasp the answers to several key questions: Who is God for me in the moment? Where is God at work, continuing to unfold God’s love and redemption? Who am I most authentically in response? It is a way of looking at all of life with a view to sensing the movement of God’s Spirit and abandoning ourselves to it…. 

Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation, p. 111, 116

Notes from Synchronicity

Leadership is about creating a domain in which human beings continually deepen their understanding of reality and become more capable of participating in the unfolding of the world. Ultimately, leadership is about creating new realities.

And further: I’ve come to appreciate that one of the gifts of artists is the ability to see the world as it really is….If we could only see reality more as it is, it would become obvious what we need to do. We would do exactly what is required of us, right now, right here.

We need to be open to fundamental shifts of mind. We have very deep mental models of how the world works, deeper than we can know. One of these shifts is from seeing the world made up of things to seeing a world that’s open and primarily made up of relationships. When we go through this shift of mind, we begin to realize that the sense of despair we’ve been feeling arises out of a fundamentally naive view of the world.

When this fundamental shift of mind occurs, our sense of identity shifts, too, and we begin to accept each other as legitimate human beings. When we start to accept this fundamental shift of mind, we begin to see ourselves as part of the unfolding. We also see that it’s actually impossible for our lives not to have meaning. 

There is a paradoxical connection between our sense of helplessness and our ceaseless activity.

When this new type of commitment starts to operate, there is a flow around us. Things just seem to happen.When we operate in this new state of mind, grounded in this different commitment, something starts to operate around us. You could call it ‘attraction’-the attractiveness of people in a state of surrender. When we are in a state of commitment and surrender, we begin to experience what is sometimes called ‘synchronicity.’ Joe calls this phenomenon ‘predictable miracles.’

Peter Senge, Intro to Synchronicity by Joe Jaworski

Robert Fritz quotes Candice Carpenter’s book Chapters, talking about the profound cycles of change a life can take. 

The first stage she calls The Gig is Up. You know that what you have been doing is over. When you try and hold on, change will be thrust upon you with greater and greater force until you let go. The more you try to hold on, the more the intensity of the tornado that is pulling you out of the present unworkable situation

The next stage is Falling: disengaged, disidentified and disenchanted, we fall into disorientation

Then comes A Walk in the Desert in which you reflect on the most existential issues of your life

Next comes Stirrings: all the threads of your past ultimately will be woven together as you become an accomplished creator

This stage is followed by A Stake in the Ground: you begin to focus and then commit yourself to your new way of life.

Change is often a death followed by resurrection. To create something new, something old must end. Die to it well, my friend.

Fritz describes three factors in creating: Mechanics of the creative process, your orientation as a creator, and the guiding spirit that sparks the direction you take.

Through the creative process, your true spirit and essence is expressed throughout your life. When you are in touch with this spirit, you are transformed in many ways. 

Robert Fritz, Notes from Your Life as Art