Discerning the Spiritual
Spiritual discernment is the ability to grasp, perceive, and comprehend activity in the spiritual realm. It is perception of the unseen granted by the Holy Spirit. As we walk with Christ, we are transformed to see and experience the world as He does. The spiritual realm and the natural realm are in constant interaction. Although the dynamics of these two realms are quite different, the Holy Spirit teaches us how to perceive His hand in the spiritual realm. In other words, He reveals to us what God is doing.
Spiritual discernment operates through all of our senses. Imagine hundreds of invisible, nuanced signals from the spiritual realm bombarding us constantly as we go about our lives. Until we have learned to discern or distinguish these signals, we remain largely unaware of them. The writer of Hebrews tells us that our senses can be trained to discern good and evil.
Hebrews 5:14 (NASB) “But solid food [from the spoken word of God] is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”
The Greek word for “discern” in this passage is the same word used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:10 when he is listing manifestations of the Holy Spirit and mentions discernment of spirits. Discernment is perception and, ultimately, understanding of the unseen. The writer of Hebrews implies that all of our senses are involved in spiritual discernment. God will use our sight, hearing, touch, smell, and even taste to show us something. The mind of Christ helps us process what we are thinking, feeling, and experiencing.
Our discernment grows strong through practice, but what does this practice look like? Spiritual discernment is extremely personal because God reveals things differently to different people. An easy way to grow discernment is to agree that God wants to use our mind and body to share His world with us. As we agree with Him in this area, we begin to experience an increase in unusual sensations, impressions, mental images, feelings, and thoughts. As we become more aware, we also gain the presence of mind to ask Him about what we are experiencing and what He is trying to reveal to us. As much as we would like formulas and rules to help us comprehend the spiritual realm and its principals, only practice and God’s empowering presence can help us grow our discernment. Our practice is life lived flowing in the Holy Spirit.
As our discernment grows, we become more aware of God in everything - be it the smile of a stranger, a sensation in the body, a thought, or an unusual circumstance. This is not “over-spiritualizing” life, but returning to the perception of reality that existed when Adam walked freely with God in the Garden of Eden. God is more eager to speak to us than we are to hear from Him. He will continue to confirm our growth with obvious and overt displays of His involvement as we expect for them.
