The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things–the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and counterfeit. —Samuel Johnson
Discernment, as Johnson notes above, is our ability to distinguish Good from Evil–and to choose the Good. When we choose between Good and Evil, we demonstrate what principles are guiding us.
[restrict] Discernment is thus the ability both to make moral choices and to act accordingly. It is not being judgmental, as in disdainful and bully moralizing; it is judgment driven by Truth. Discernment emerges from knowing, choosing, and acting on the Good.
The simple ability to distinguish “right” from “wrong” begins at age three according to psychologists who study moral development. However, from even our earliest experiences, we begin to grow in discernment by developing virtues. Therefore, the extent to which we develop virtue (such as kindness, justice, caring, truthfulness, courage, and the like), we stir up the quality of our ability to discern. While our individual temperament may be drawn to one virtue over another, refining these proclivities, our tendencies, through the discipline of enacting virtue shapes both our character and our ability to discern. Like the young woman who lived in the past with her mental CD on repeat ‘dengerenger el di millamch a chudl… ‘must fight and reject that voice with courage and kindness.
We don’t realize we agreed to what was said. But what was said times too many we began to believe them. They quietly move into your mind and before you know it, everything is wrong. Your mood moves down south in seconds, you snap at your loved ones and dampens the air with debilitating silence. Making everyone feels guilty. Kids, especially, walk out to school with fear of rejection.
It takes courage to discern when we are being deceived by Evil taking us back twenty years ago – to steal our joy NOW.
God gave women a fierce heart; it is not only men who need to fight in the battle. But we a have a role to play, and much of that begins with a choice to break the agreements we have been making with our Enemy. God knows your wounds; he knows the story of your life. He knows what works—for some it is fear, for others it is shame or bitterness, envy, indulgence. Christ comes to free us, but we must participate in our freedom by breaking these agreements. Example, “I break the agreement that I am …. in Jesus’ Name. And, LORD makes my life a miracle.”
We ask with an internal choice to let God so invade our hearts that we cannot be held to any sort of bondage internally. We choose to love, to forgive; we choose not to fear. Remember it is a process, a journey of the heart. Doesn’t happen one time. It must be done over time until you to feel free from the voice of the past. When you change, your children change too. The verity of learned behavior.
Through discernment, we express our connection to the concerns of humanity at large and define our character – with our True Self. [/restrict]