This green farm girl from Michigan knew that moving to the big city of Chicago when she was eighteen was going to be an adventure. What she didn’t realize was how little she knew about the big, wide world out there beyond the corn fields and the extended family safety net.
I will never forget how proud I was to be going about the city of Chicago on my own as a freshman in Bible college. One spring day I took a walk in Lincoln Park, famous for the zoo that was nestled in it. I sat down on a bench to enjoy the view and to get some studying done, but I got so sleepy that I just leaned over and took a little snooze right there!
It’s a good thing that I had the kind of relationship with my parents where I told them everything because when I related that event to my mother, I was warned soundly to never do that again.
Thankfully, nothing happened to me, but any number of not-good things certainly could have.
In my naivety, I lacked the discernment to manage life in a metropolitan city. I didn’t mean to have that lack; I just had the blessing of being raised in a relatively safe circle of family, church, and community that sheltered me from the harsh realities of the world and made me think that everywhere I went would be the same as where I grew up.
As Christians, it’s really easy for us to live the same way in this world. We choose to anesthetize ourselves to the evil going on around us and to deny the reality that deep corruption and sin lie within us, too. In our desire to protect ourselves, we tend to think the best of everyone, being trusting more than suspicious, and sometimes landing ourselves face-to-face with deep betrayal. We believe what we see on the outside because we believe what we want to see instead of being discerning about what is actually there.
It reminds me of an account I read recently in a biography of St. Francis of Assisi by Donald Spoto. Spoto describes one of the many eager followers who joined Francis and his band of disciples in 13th century Italy. Like all the others, Elias Bombarone joined the fraternity with a desire to serve others, to preach the gospel, and to live a life of poverty and self-denial. At least, it seemed that way on the surface.
Francis welcomed him into the fold with grace and love just like the others and likely died thinking that Elias was a devout disciple of Christ who was faithful to his vows. But Elias’ true nature wasn’t revealed until after Francis’ death when he “tyrannized the fledgling Order, led it away from its spirit of poverty and into a quest for wealth and power, imprisoned several of the original and most faithful friars and generally betrayed both Francis and the community” (p. 119).*
Francis was a godly man who spent his life both physically and spiritually for the sake of Christ, and yet we have to wonder: how did he not see through Elias?
I have asked myself the same question at different times in our ministry when people whom I thought were our friends and co-laborers in the gospel and the church turned on us.
As time has gone on, I have had to learn the truth of Hebrew 5:14. It is the mature who “have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” I can observe from a distance at first to determine if a person is trustworthy. That way I can try to avoid getting close to the wrong people and being hurt. But even when we use discernment, people still can deceive us, just as Elias deceived Francis. It really is only by practice, by getting hurt and learning to discern the hard way that I can develop discernment.
I still remember how that practice hurts. In my husband’s first church ministry, the elder with whom my husband became the closest betrayed him. He broke a private confidence and tried to turn the rest of the church board against my husband. I remember asking God: What did we do wrong? How did we not see this before? I figured that if we had prayed more or asked God for more careful direction when getting to know people and reaching out to love them, then we would have known enough to not give the gift of our trust only to have it used against us.
But now that we’ve come through yet another painful betrayal from those who call themselves God’s people, I am learning that sometimes God doesn’t want us to know these things. Maybe He wants us to love these people anyway without knowing they will betray us. That doesn’t mean we open ourselves to abuse and manipulation (believe me, I will be much wiser as I move forward in relationships in our next church ministry because of what I’ve recently experienced), but I do wonder sometimes if God is just wanting me to share in His sufferings.
After all, He defines wisdom and discernment, and He was betrayed. He loved the one who betrayed Him and sold Him for thirty round pieces of the metal He Himself had forged within the hot earth He fashioned.
I pray that Paul’s prayer for the Philippians becomes my own: that my “love would abound more and more, with knowledge and discernment” (Philippians 1:9). I need to balance love with discernment. Sometimes being loving means distancing yourself from the one who just seems too good to be true because she might be. She could be one disguised as an angel of light like her father the Devil (2 Corinthians 11:14). You don’t have to give someone the right to manipulate you or your husband or children. By not allowing him to do so, you can show him a better way, that is, the way of true love, balanced with discernment and knowledge and truth.
We can’t learn discernment without practice. It’s part of the process to get “burned” a bit…but we dare not stop learning. We need to remain soft but still see things truthfully.
And the beauty of it all? The ones with whom we need to show the greatest discernment could become the ones who teach us the most and forge the most precious gems of character deep in our souls.
*Reluctant Saint: The Life of Francis of Assisi by Donald Spoto, Penguin Compass, New York, 2002.
