The Value of Community Discernment

I was talking with a friend a week or so ago and was given an excellent example of how discernment works in community. Most of us like to think that we don’t need a great deal of help from others especially if we feel strongly about it. Hey, we say, it sounds good to me, I’ll just do it. Sure, I may ask some close friends or my spouse to give me some insight, but you know, if I think it’s right, it must be.

AA, for example, has always felt this was a dangerous thought, at least for those who have had issues with addiction like this friend of mine. He can be one of those people who go off on a new adventure without thinking whether it might be the right thing or not. That’s why AA will often recommend that no matter how long you have been sober it might be a good idea to run your ideas past at least your sponsor.

As the old maxim in AA goes, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

Well, everything seemed right for this friend of mine. It was a golden idea and a golden opportunity. It wasn’t quite a dream come true, but it sure felt like it. So he went ahead. Oh, he talked a good line about knowing that if it didn’t work out it would be God’s choice not his. But the more he worked the more excited he got. The more excited he got the more he was sure that this was THE right thing.

Well, as you might have guessed, it didn’t work out that way. The plans didn’t result in him getting what he hoped. He didn’t get out of it what he wanted. He was devastated. He was upset. He was angry. He moped. It’s not that he hadn’t talked to people about the situation. He had done lots of talking. He urged his friends to ask him the hard questions so he would have the answers. His friends had done that.

After it was all over he would talk with many of these same friends again and they would, without exception, say, “Wow. I’m sorry, but I am really glad it didn’t work out the way you thought. It wasn’t right for you in the long run.”

It took him almost a month till, out of the blue, it finally dawned on him that if he had been listening he would have heard the message from the beginning. The discernment process of all his friends, 100% of those he talked to about it before and after had said the same thing. Yes, they had agreed with him that it sounded good and he was on the right track- but not for him. It would have been the right thing in the wrong place.

He shook his head as we talked. He had a half-grin, the one he gets when he realizes that God has just hit him up the side of the head again.