I recently had the wonderful opportunity to refresh my spiritual direction ministry by attending the second residency of the current class with the Shalem Spiritual Guidance Program.
I was planning to camp on my way home and had a campground in mind. I arrived in plenty of time to setup before dark. I drove around the entire campground scouting for a site. Then I drove around a second time and really didn’t find anything to my liking. I noticed none of the sites were prepared with tent pads, so tents had to be pitched on the grass (deer tick potential). There was no view even though the campground was located on a mountain top, and insects were eating me up.
On the third time around, I realized I did not want to spend three days in that campground. There was nothing but a sense of desolation about the place. Then I remembered a refrain I heard often at the residency, “Discern, discern, discern! However, it was the weekend before the 4th of July, and there may not be any vacancies if I go elsewhere.
I decided to go on down the road even if I had to sleep in the car that night. (Wouldn’t be the first time.) I entered the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) and asked the Ranger for the nearest campground. He directed me off the BRP to a campground in the George Washington National Forest. There were vacancies, even with electricity so I could use my laptop to reflect on the seminars from the residency.
The camp sites were prepared with landscape timbers, and the camp host had raked a pattern in the sand–very inviting. There were virtually no insects. I woke up the next morning to a mountain stream, looking at tall forest trees dappled with sunlight. It was everything I was hoping for in a campground.
I was really glad I had the presence of mind to pay attention to the desolation I was feeling at the first campground, and to keep going for what God had prepared for me for three beautiful days.
It really makes a difference to notice what the Spirit of God is doing in our souls. That is discernment, and it is a dimension of God’s guidance.