Yearning to Know God's Will

Author: Danny E. Morris
Publisher: Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991
View: Traditional View with Wisdom Leanings

Danny Morris is the Executive Director of the Academy for Spiritual Formation of the Upper Room, Nashville, TN. The subtitle of the book is "A Workbook for Discerning God's Guidance in Your Life." The book includes teaching as well as a daily workbook of questions and tasks. Those using the workbook meet weekly to discuss what they are learning. The book seems to be geared for mainline denominations. United Methodist churches are specifically mentioned in the Appreciation (8).

Morris focuses on "spiritual discernment" (9). He connects this with the gift of discerning spirits (1 Cor. 12:10), but makes it clear that spiritual discernment is available to all (28) for "God wants everyone to know God's will" (9). 1 Kings 19:11-13 is used as a model. "Elijah came to see … God 'in the still small voice' deep within" (11). The idea of God speaking in an inner voice is significant throughout the book. This is encouraged by "times of silence" when everyone listens to God. "If discernment is our goal, silence will be our practice" (20).

Scripture is used to show examples where God spoke to man. Often the passages discussed involve God giving direct revelation. The book's perspective is the traditional view of guidance. "We spend our time and energy arguing and defending various points of view, instead of using our energy to listen to know God's heart, God's mind, God's plan" (14). Morris sees an individual will for each person and for each church when they make a decision. The last section of the book applies this method to corporate decisions.

Unlike the traditional view, Morris seems to limit when God's will needs to be discerned. On most small decisions only "general wisdom" is needed. "As faithful Christians, we may expect that wisdom in our daily affairs. Most of the time general wisdom is sufficient for our needs" (29, 49). He cautions that we won't always have "indisputable proof or clarity" (30) of God's will. Sometimes he says two options "could be lived out within the Spirit and love of God, as though God says, 'Take your pick of either choice and go live your life!" (42). Morris does not give a biblical rationale for these conclusions, but they do protect him from some of the inconsistencies of the traditional view. But most often he asserts, "You can know God's will for your life! You can know whether a particular thing you have decided to do (or not to do) is God's will!" (31)

Morris does not try to develop his own theology of finding God's will. He uses two methods from the history of spirituality--the Ignatian method and the Quaker Committee of Clearness. "St. Ignatius lived about 400 years ago. In his method of experiencing God, he gathered and distilled and synthesized spiritual training up to that time in history" (42).

Morris summarizes the Ignatius method. "By using conventional methods of decision making we choose what we feel is the one best possibility among all the options and then, by spiritual discernment, we seek to determine whether it is God's will" (43). You should not give God a "multiple choice question" (43). You must offer one choice to God after using reason, available research and cognitive evaluation. Once you offer the best choice to God, "You will know that the answer is either yes or no according to the feeling you get …In time the Holy Spirit gives one of only two responses-the feeling of consolation or the feeling of desolation" (45). Consolation is calm and inner strength. Desolation is anxiety, confusion or agitation (47). If consolation, you know it is God's will. If desolation, then drop that option and you test the next good option.

In the Quaker method the person chooses a Committee of Clearness. They do not make decisions or even advise. The decision maker presents the best option for a decision to the committee. They probe the individual with questions and then pray over the process. The probing and prayer continues and finally, "Clarity is expected to come!" (46) Both methods are used only when the choice is between two good things. Otherwise it is a moral question and the good should always be obeyed (48).

In both methods the individual narrows the options to one choice using "(1) Information gathering (2) Consultation (3) Consideration (reflection and prayer) (4) Decision" (51). This process appears to be identical with the way of wisdom.

The individual now listens to God to find out if this option is His will. God speaks in our intuition ("direct knowledge or awareness of something without conscious attention or reasoning", 57). "We get nudges-feelings that this or that should be done or not done; we get hunches and leadings, signs and signals, and sometimes direct messages" (58). "The willingness to honor one's spiritual intuition is a measure of one's faithfulness" (58). Similar to Johnson in Discerning God's Will, there is discussion of God speaking in the "mind, emotion, imagination, memory and will" (70) which Father John Powell, S.J. calls "ports of entry" (70). "The major factor determining how little I communicate with God is the closed or underdeveloped ports of entry to my consciousness" (76). The idea of spiritually right-brain people is part of what the church needs not just left-brain people (132).

In corporate decision making, spiritual discernment can be done by praying individuals who find God's will for the church. In an example he says, "Therefore, I felt confident that if we came together and earnestly tried to know God's will, it could be known-and that we could all know it at once" (106). The method is "spiritual discernment by consensus!" (107). "The higher way for a church will seldom come through a vote. It will come about when it is spiritually discerned" (116). A praying committee will narrow the choice to one and then the group listens for God to make it clear if this is His will.

He ends the book with practical answers to objections to this method. The example of the Friends church helps illustrate how this works out in practice. "They wait for the inner prompting of the Spirit and share their 'leading'." (131).

This model seems to be the traditional view in two steps. The first step judges the options by Scripture, wisdom, counsel, reason and research and narrows it to one. The second step applies the inward witness of the Spirit to the option selected which gives a yes or a no answer. Step two is quite subjective and honors impressions like they are revelation. The saving grace is that only good, moral, wise choices are ever tested by the spiritual feelings and hunches. The choice is narrowed down before the inward witness gets involved. So the test of impressions never is allowed to select a sinful, foolish or poor choice.

At first it appears that this method puts more emphasis on feelings, impressions and spiritual intuition, but it does not. Impressions never narrow down the field of options. Moral and wisdom factors have the greatest influence since they nominate the option to be considered. The subjective "listening to God" only gets to approve or disapprove the option chosen by wisdom. In that sense, impressions have less influence on the choice even though it looks like they make the choice. This is the traditional view with an improvement. It sounds more quietistic and subjective than the normal traditional view, but it really is more influenced by wisdom than the traditional view.

In corporate decisions the same process is at work. The committee prays and by wisdom and research narrows it to one choice. The corporate group then listens for God's voice in their hearts. If done properly, only good moral and wise choices come before the corporate group. Only then are the inward impressions used to help people come to a consensus. All the examples in the book work out nicely. In practice, consensus in difficult corporate decisions is often going to take a long time especially if it is a diverse group. There is also the problem that the wisest choice put forth might not get confirmation from inward impressions.

Ironically, the end result in both individual and corporate decisions is a result that the wisdom view can usually approve. The wisdom view does not think that the Ignatius method results in God revealing the one thing that He wanted. But it does result in a good, moral wise decision with which the individual can feel a peace about. And that is a very good thing. This result is reached more biblically through the wisdom view, but Morris often gets to the same place. Unfortunately, this view gives impressions authority as God's voice. Impressions are helpful as potential sources of wisdom, but they are not revelation. They must be tested by revelation which asks, "Is this impression moral and wise?"