"It would be a strange God who showered us with certainty, thereby relieving us from any need to exercise courage, initiative, and our capacity to figure things out for ourselves." ~ M. Scott Peck
What is the formula of knowing whether you're headed down the correct path with your decisions? What are the answers to questions like:
- How do I know when to intervene with my child and when to leave him alone?
- How can you tell when to get out of a bad marriage or when to keep working on it?
- How do I know when to challenge my boss?
- When to take a stand, and when not to take a stand?
- Where do you draw the line between trying to help someone and being codependent?
The bottom line is, you don't know the answers to the aforementioned questions. You can never know for certain. But just asking the questions is likely to get you on the correct path. Only there are no formulas. Every situation is different.
The guidelines offered for the discernment of revelation are simply guidelines and not formulas to relieve you of having to go through uncertain moments and situations in life. However, there is a sort of formula for the discernment process in general. Author M. Scott Peck referred to this pseudo formula as "The Emptiness of Not Knowing."
The unconscious is always one step ahead of the conscious mind in the right direction or the wrong direction. It is therefore impossible ever to know that what you are doing is right, since knowing is a function of consciousness. However, if your will is steadfastly to the good, and if you are willing to suffer fully when the good seems ambiguous (which is about 98% of the time), then your unconscious will always be one step ahead of your conscious mind in the right direction. In other words, the Holy Spirit will lead you and you will do the right thing. Only you won't have the luxury of knowing it at the time you're doing it. Indeed, you will do the right thing precisely because you have been willing to forgo that luxury.
If you are unclear about what this formula means, you might want to consider its opposite and remember that most of the evil in this world - the incivility - is committed by people who are absolutely certain that they know what they're doing.
Allow me to translate what the late, great, Dr. Peck states in his book, "A World Waiting To Be Born." He writes, "if your will is steadfastly to the good." In other words, if you primarily live your life, as best you can, on the "High Road," that is, you're not trying to get over or take advantage of people; you're not a compulsive liar; not a wife-beater or habitual cheater; not a scam-artist, but typically make the attempt to live your life by the golden rule, then, the Universe will guide your path and the choices that you make will be the correct choices. You will be able to see that the choices you made were the right ones through the eventual consequences and hindsight.
Brilliance
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