Discernment When my daughter Eowyn was very little, she took it upon herself to simplift the alphabet.  She’s replaced all the C’s, G’s, and K’s with the letter D.  It was cute, (and if it caught on, would have made spelling a lot easier) but it made her difficult to understand at times.

“Daddy, dan I have some dum or dandy in de dar?”

That one’s easy, but I remember the time when she wanted me to “dade a pidder.”   She was very insistent that I “dade a pidder” right away!  “DADDY, DADE A PIDDER!”  It took about 5 minutes of my wife and I playing 20 Questions / Charades until we figured out that she wanted me to “take her picture.”

As amazingly smart as my little girl is, and as good as she was at getting her point across most of the time when she was very small, I really had to listen extra hard to discern what she’s trying to say.

Which brings me to today’s topic: Discernment.  Figuring out what is right, wrong, good, bad, wise, foolish, helpful, distracting, kind, unkind, unimportant, important or urgent.   There are so many competing voices and choices around us that to find what is right and good takes work, focus and often, help from others.  I came across some great links about discernment that will hopefully be of help to you if you are trying to figure something out.

Be Discerning about Twilight – Mark Driscoll (Youtube – 10 min) (Yes, it’s a little old, but the principles are universal)

Praying the 6 D’s – John Piper (Short Blog)

5 Ways to Know if You’re Really a Christian – Owen Strachen (Article)

The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment – Tim Challies (Book)