Spiritual discernment is the process of making decisions in a way that align to God’s will and thus maximizes our long-term ability to become closer to God and to better love and serve Him. I use the phrase “Walking humbly with God” as a reminder to live in the presence of God as much as possible so that my decisions, big and small, follow God’s will in my life. 

When we invite God to help us with discernment, He will help us know what the right path is to take. Many times, it is through very subtle feelings, such as feeling a lot of peace with a potential decision option. Sometimes He guides us in obvious ways. We have all heard examples of people deciding if they should change careers and at that moment a friend calls with just the right opportunity. I just had such obvious help from God. 

A few months ago, my wife Angie and I put down a deposit to attend a pilgrimage to Rome in September of this year directed by Dr. Edward Sri.  We figured that since many people were getting vaccinated and Covid-19 cases were decreasing it was OK to go. It was time to travel once again! The pilgrimage sounded wonderful: audience with Pope Francis, walking in the footsteps of apostles and saints, prayer at sacred sites, and more. As the Covid infections started to go up all over the world again due to the Delta variant we started to get nervous. With only one week before the final payment was due, I entered spiritual discernment and asked God to guide us. I researched infection rates and the infection numbers in our Florida, USA state are 2 to 3 times higher than all of Italy. We would be leaving one of the worst hot spots. As the due date approached, we felt more at peace about going, but still felt some hesitancy. 

When the due date to pay arrived we were mostly at peace, but not 100%. Angie reminded me of one more risk factor. I needed to renew my passport and although I submitted it over a month ago, the reports in the news were that passport processing was severely overwhelmed and they were backlogged. Passports were getting issued much longer than normal.  I said, well, we put it in God’s hands since the agency said it was going to take 3 more weeks and there was no way to check status. 30 minutes later I received an email from the agency processing my passport saying that it was done 3 weeks ahead of time and they were going to overnight the passport. I just sat there and laughed so hard! God is amazing! This did not happen the following week, it happened right when we had to make the final decision. And so, we wrote the check and mailed it. Does that mean that the trip will go smoothly, and we will not get sick? No, it simply means that going will help us get closer to God, learn, and we will be able to serve Him better. It is aligned to His will. 

‘ ... I give the name ‘consolation’ to every increase of hope, faith and charity to all interior happiness that calls and attracts a person towards heavenly things and to the soul’s salvation, leaving the soul quiet and at peace in its Creator and Lord.’ St Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises

Jesuit spiritual directors offer the following steps for spiritual discernment: Become free from attachment to a particular outcome, pray over options and listen to God’s guidance through feelings of happiness over options or negative feelings over others, seek confirmation which may come from inner peace or outside (my passport), and then just do it in surrender to God. 

May God bless you and help you with your major decisions!