Sorting Out God’s Voice
Stephanie Hall

The following is excerpted with permission from the September/October 2002 issue of Vestry Papers, a publications of the Cornerstone Project, a ministry of the Episcopal Church Foundation.

Spiritual discernment is the quest to discover God’s will for us so that we can live into the words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done.” It is a way in which the people of God can both enact their faith and deepen their love and trust while working out community decisions that they face as the body of Christ. The goal of discernment is to sort out God’s voice from the other voices in our lives, e.g., the noise of our outer and inner lives, voices from our past, fears of the future, and desires of the moment.

Several principles are central to spiritual discernment.

Prayer — prayer before meetings, prayer throughout meetings, prayer by others on behalf of the meetings, prayer after we leave a meeting, prayer in silence. Undefended listening for the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Total listening — deep listening for God’s voice in other people, in the mood of the group, and in our own heart and imagination. Requires a lifetime of effort and the practice of silence.

Letting go — of our own agendas and timelines, living with uncertainty.

Consensus — an authentic coming together of the body gathered. Spiritual consensus allows one person to stand in the way of a decision, thus members of the group must be genuinely open to agendas other than their own.