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    Living into the Answers: A Workbook for Personal Spiritual Discernment
    Living into the Answers: A Workbook for Personal Spiritual Discernment
    Living into the Answers: A Workbook for Personal Spiritual Discernment
    Ebook170 pages1 hour

    Living into the Answers: A Workbook for Personal Spiritual Discernment

    By Valerie K. Isenhower and Judith A. Todd

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    About this ebook

    What do I do now?!

    Face life's "forks in the road" and write your own future—fearlessly. Be guided to your own wisdom within the context of the always-present divine voice. Living into the Answers teaches a way to ask for and receive God's guidance as you approach an issue or choice.

    "Large or small, the decisions of life point toward particular paths," write Isenhower and Todd. "Paying attention to the process of discerning God's desire for our life starts us on a journey that leads to abundant life. …It opens us to a larger number of life choices and to a more interactive relationship with God who calls us for future possibilities."

    Discernment isn't magic. It isn't passive. Discernment isn't a complicated mystical practice. Rather, it's a process of listening and choosing based on the understanding that God is to be at the center of decision making. The authors explain how to live in a way that satisfies the yearning for a deeper connection with the spiritual.

    There may not always be one "right" answer because there's no shortcut to knowing which job to take, house to buy or relationship to pursue. But we don't have to make these decisions alone. As people of faith, we know every aspect of our lives is important to God, who created us for a purpose.

    Living into the Answers is an inspiring and practical personal workbook that

    introduces tools and practices that invite God in as we consider priorities and alternatives
    guides us to create prayerfully considered options
    helps us live with the confidence that God will use our choices to invite us into a deeper and more fruitful relationship
    With Isenhower and Todd as your guides, you'll learn how to make every decision an opportunity for living in God's presence more deeply.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUpper Room Books
    Release dateSep 14, 2022
    ISBN9780835820158
    Living into the Answers: A Workbook for Personal Spiritual Discernment
    Author

    Valerie K. Isenhower

    Valerie K. Isenhower, executive director of Water in the Desert Ministries in Albuquerque, is also owner of V. Isenhower Photography and Genuine Southwest Art & Gifts. She received her undergraduate education at University of Montana and University of Northern Colorado. Isenhower earned an MDiv from Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City and pursued additional graduate work at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She is the former coordinator of ministry for Worshipful-Work, an ecumenical ministry in spiritual discernment. An American Baptist minister, Isenhower teaches spirituality and photography classes and training in the discernment process. As a photographer, she specializes in meditative and discernment photographs. She also records photos of hot-air balloons. Her photographs have been published and displayed in galleries.

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      Book preview

      Living into the Answers - Valerie K. Isenhower

      CHAPTER 1

      What Is Spiritual Discernment?

      DISCERNMENT is a way of sifting priorities and defining a basis for choice. The questions we ask in the midst of the issues that arise in our lives usually center on us and our particular challenges. Personal spiritual discernment shifts the base of our questions. This way of being seeks to listen to God’s yearning for us first. This particular process of discernment then places our issues into a larger perspective than just our own lives.

      Many people ask us, How do I know what God wants me to do? and How do I know when it is God speaking and not my own voice echoing my desires? Discernment is the way by which we find the answer to the first question and sort the voices in the second question. Spiritual discernment is about finding God’s yearning for the direction of our life. It is not a once-and-for-all answer to our questions but a continual seeking for God’s longing as we accept the invitation to live into the abundance God so freely gives us.

      As Chuck Olsen has observed, discernment is an elusive and mysterious term precisely because it presumes that we can know the will of God.¹ The term discernment historically has been used by the Quaker movement and in Roman Catholicism. The Jesuit order has focused time and energy on the discipline of personal discernment. Now the term is becoming an in word among mainline Protestants, but people often apply it to anything related to a decision. We will continue to probe the range of its meaning and the rich treasures we can discover as we move within the mystery of God’s initiatives and our responses to them.

      We do know that spiritual discernment leads to change. Our relationships with God and with other people will never be the same after we begin to live a life of discernment. God may call us to something new in our life. All the time, the Spirit is moving with us, supporting and guiding us.

      As individuals we will approach spiritual discernment from a variety of directions because our personality types differ (see chapter 2). We also come to this spiritual activity with varied backgrounds. We are at mixed levels of self-awareness, and we differ in our degree of comfort with our own style of decision making and handling personal issues. We vary also in our relationship with and knowledge of God. Thus, God will speak to us in diverse venues with diverse messages, and we will hear God in just as many ways.

      What about that question How do I know God’s will for my life? We can know God’s longing for us more clearly as we become skilled in listening for God and paying attention to the ways God speaks to us. Eventually, as we walk through the process over and over again, discernment becomes a way of life.

      We are asked why we don’t use the phrase God’s will in this workbook. In workshops and throughout the book we use the phrase God’s yearning or God’s longing instead of God’s will. Often when we speak of God’s will, we envision God opening up one path before us, or we look for one answer in the face of our life choices. When we search for God’s will in our lives, we can get caught up in looking for the right answer or the choice God wants us to make. The phrases God’s yearning or God’s longing open us up to a larger number of life choices and to a more interactive relationship with the God who calls us into future possibilities. Thus, we have chosen to encourage people to listen to God’s longing for us as individual people as we examine issues or decision-making times in our lives.

      Discernment is appropriate anytime we have a decision to make. Large or small, the decisions of life point toward particular paths. Paying attention to the process of discerning God’s desire starts us on a journey down paths that lead to abundant life.

      Pierre Wolff in Discernment: The Art of Choosing Well relates spiritual discernment to the following passage from Deuteronomy 30:15-20:

      See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.²

      Because our decisions lead to life or death, discernment involves listening to God, walking in God’s way, and choosing life and possibilities. We can see people around us making choices that lead to death, evidenced by divisions between family members and destructive relationships. Choices that bring death lead toward fear and desperation. Life choices bring the opposite results. They foster an opening up of relationships, and these choices lead toward healing and growth. Life choices support the examination of new alternatives in one’s life. The Deuteronomist calls us to seek God’s longing for our lives, so that we may truly live.

      For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

      —Jeremiah 29:11

      Water in the Desert Ministries began when the four founders discovered that each of us was at a crossroad and transition point in our life. Each of us was facing questions about our life’s vocation. After walking through our own personal discernment process, we all met in Albuquerque to discuss the possibilities of a joint venture and to discern whether God was calling us to a special ministry. Our experiences as church leaders helped us to hear people crying out for help with their spiritual hunger. Each of us also has a passion for helping people walk a journey of spiritual formation or renewal. As we looked at the issue of life transitions and prayed for discernment of God’s purpose for our meeting, it became clear that God was calling us to provide opportunities for people to grow in their relationship with God. We found ourselves led to Isaiah 43:18-21, a passage that has become a foundational text for us:

      Do not remember the former things,

      or consider the things of old.

      I am about to do a new thing;

      now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

      I will make a way in the wilderness

      and rivers in the desert.

      The wild animals will honor me,

      the jackals and the ostriches;

      for I give water in the wilderness,

      rivers in the desert,

      to give drink to my chosen people,

      the people whom I formed for myself

      so that they might declare my praise.

      We believe God is doing a new thing in our day and longs to bring forth waters in the desert places of people’s lives. We have responded to God’s yearning by articulating an orderly process for discernment so that others may hear their special call. We each continue personal discernment to find our particular role in the ministry and to explore where God is leading us as a

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