DISCERNMENT AS DISCIPLESHIP

Discernment as Discipleship 'God told me my wife was going to die'

by TANIA HARRIS

Robert was a pastor of a thriving church in an inner-city suburb. After many years walking with God, Robert knew how to hear God’s voice. But now it seemed the voice was telling him something foreboding – his wife was going to die. Afterwards, he would marry the worship leader.

Soon after, a church member came to talk with Robert: “God spoke to me about you this week... He wants you to know that your wife is not going to die.’

The next day Robert booked a local hotel. There he slept with the worship leader. Afterwards, his marriage broke up and the church fell apart.

Robert’s story strikes dread in all of us. How could he have got it so wrong?

The concept of hearing God’s voice is an attractive one, but it is also dangerous. History tells the torrid tales of manipulation, deception and even murder justified by the claim: ‘God told me’. Encouraging people to hear directly from the Spirit seems to invite a truckload of ministry problems. When we hear stories such as Robert’s, our instinct is to shut the experience down.

But our knee-jerk reaction misses the point. The problem has never been the revelatory experience itself – after all, the Spirit was given to us for this express reason (Acts 2:16,17). The problem lies in how we manage it in the context of flawed human hearts and our very human churches. Part of the solution must be to teach our congregations how to discern their experiences. Telling people they can hear God’s voice without training them to discern it is like giving a toddler a loaded gun! Research indicates that training should involve intentional teaching, modelling and the facilitation of open conversation in the context of authentic relationships.

Discernment as Discipleship

But lack of training is only part of the issue. Most of our problems arise because of the state of our hearts. Robert’s story illustrates this vividly. Robert got it wrong in hearing God but, when faced with truth, his response was to book a room. The issue is not the experience itself or even its discernment - it is discipleship. Jesus said his people “hear his voice... and follow” (John 10:27). We become subject to deception when we make a decision to stop following Jesus. Hearing and discerning God’s voice is a matter of ‘followship’ and needs to be approached that way.

In our desire to protect people from pastoral fallout, we must not shut off the very thing that is able to bring truth and conviction (John 16:8). Of course, people always have the option to say no. Our answer lies not in shutting it down, but in doing everything we can to perpetuate a culture of discipleship. The one thing we can do is to actively encourage people to say yes.

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TANIA HARRIS (PhD) is an ordained ACC pastor, speaker, author, practical theologian and the founding director of God Conversations.