Discernment: It's Not All in Your Head

Sometimes God moves the furniture: Helen Syski’s quest for a sofa reminds her of the oneness of body and soul in discernment.

Glancing at my husband, I plunked down on the sofa. Nope, too firm. Popping up, I tried another. Too square. The next was too … something. Like Goldilocks, I spun from one to the next throughout the store, but unlike Goldilocks, “just right!” eluded me.

Online Means on Hold

When we moved to our new home four years ago, we knew it was time to make our first real furniture purchase: a large family sofa. One big enough and comfortable enough for all six of us to clamber on for family read-alouds by the fire, kids comfortably draped behind and tucked under our arms. Some additional configuration would be needed for hosting other families, who sometimes come in batches of more than ten.

I spent hours searching online; so many sofas, so many colors and fabrics … and yet none checked all my boxes. The shape and configuration of our living room is a little odd, and figuring out the right combination was beyond me. My bleary eyes and queasy stomach would eventually inform me of the interminable length of my search. Eventually I shelved the dilemma. There was no clear solution, and I had more pressing things to do.

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Discernment Requires In-person Trial

My husband realized that I would never be able to spend thousands of dollars on furniture I had never sat on, nor pick a fabric I had never felt. Not when we would then be sitting on it and feeling it for decades to come!

Handing the big kids over to my parents and hefting the infant bucket into our car, we did the unthinkable: We went to the most promising online store in person.

Five minutes after entering the store, we knew there was not one piece of furniture we were willing to buy. The enticing and infinite options available online crumbled as dust. Thankfully, four stores later we rode up an escalator and a gasp escaped me. In front of us was the PERFECT sofa, unlike any I’d ever seen and more comfortable than I’d ever hoped. Online I would have scrolled right past it, but in person it was the obvious answer to our plaguing riddle.

Embodied Spirits Make Embodied Decisions

When God asks us to move or refresh our interior furniture, we have to be willing to try it out in-person. If all we do is imagine the different scenarios, but never enter into one, we will never make a choice.

When looking for your husband, did you just look from afar until you knew who you wanted to marry? You certainly began that way, but at some point discernment must become embodied. It requires building relationships and sometimes ending relationships as we date our way to our final choice.

Our souls are intimately connected to our bodies. When we forget this, it is easy to become ungrounded and unglued. Whatever the dilemma we face, God intends us to solve it with our whole selves. It is often our body that gives us the clues of consolation and desolation, peace and distress. Our bodies allow our souls to touch reality in important, decisive ways.

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Are you struggling with a difficult decision right now? How can you make the different choices embodied in order to bring clarity to your discernment?

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