Just recently I was sitting at my desk in what can only be termed as a blind panic. I had my diary in front of me with day after day filled with appointments, school insets, days of reflection, meetings and a pilgrimage to the Holy Land thrown into the mix for good measure! At the time I was trying to write a four week course to enable people to have a deeper insight into the Scriptures and I also had articles for magazines and papers that needed to be written. I had several requests to speak at conferences and days of renewal and just for a few moments it all seemed too much for me.

I was overwhelmed and seemed to be sinking into the mire of panic and worry. How was I ever going to have enough time to get everything ready that I needed to prepare? How could I say no to the people who were asking me to do things at the moment? Was this what burn-out felt like? I then remembered something that I often say to others who feel overwhelmed with all that has to be done. It’s a simple word ‘Prioritise’. What was it amongst all that I had to do that was of most importance and needed to be dealt with immediately? What should I say no to and what should I defer for the time being? I realised when the panic subsided that I was into trying to exercise the spiritual gift of discernment.

Life giving choices

The word discernment comes from two Latin words, “dis” meaning apart and “cernere” meaning to separate. The spiritual gift of discernment enables us to live in such away that the choices and decisions we make are life-giving for ourselves and for others. What I was faced with was anything but life-giving for me or for those who had to deal with my moods!

Pat Collins in his book ‘Prayer in Practice’ suggests three necessary attitudes when discerning what to do when decisions have to be made.

1. Desire God’s will in any situation
2. Pray for the wisdom to make the right decision
3. Detach yourself from the situation

In the circumstances I was in I had first of all to recognise that everything that I was being asked to do was good but was it all God’s will for me? The great Jesuit writer Gerard Hughes in his book “God in all things” talks of reflecting on the mood or feeling that you have when faced with decisions and says: ‘If going with the mood or feeling leads to an increase of faith, hope and love then it is creative. If it leads to a decrease of faith, hope and love then it is destructive.’ I had to admit that my feelings concerned with everything I had to do were anything but creative! Some things had to go! Even that decision was a movement and filled me with peace. Then I had to pray for the wisdom to know what had to be let go of or deferred and what had to be done. That is always a hard path. How do I know whether I have received the wisdom? Over the years I have come to the conclusion that you never know fully, you have to trust and go with the awareness that God is with you and make decisions. Sometimes you’ll be right and other times wrong but the more you practice discernment the more skilled you become at listening and hearing God’s voice.

Learning to detach yourself

So after my prayer time for wisdom I took all the things that I had to do and the requests that had to be responded to and under various headings I wrote down what had to be done for each of them and in the case of the requests that had come in whether or not I felt that it was right for me to respond to them. This was my detaching myself from the panic and the fear and an attempt to be a little more objective.

After that it was a case of trying to decide which of the options available filled me with the deepest peace and then responding to that. Eventually I felt free enough to say no to some invitations, to speak to some people about deferring days that I thought I probably should do but not yet until I was left with a manageable timetable. The whole experience led me to recognise the presence of God guiding me and leading me. It made me realise the need for discernment in all our lives and it led me to the conclusion that I would never again glibly say to anyone “Prioritise”.

Fr Chris Thomas heads up the Irenaeus Project. He is a member of the Emmaus Family of Prayer and a priest of the Liverpool Diocese.