Isn’t that the truth? The road to hell begins smoothly, you drift a little to one side or the other and you don’t even realize it. As Lewis says, there aren’t any signposts, nothing to let you know you are going the wrong way. The Evil One won’t post signs for you, he will just let you go on your way. That was certainly the way for me.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t need a GPS to stay on the right road, the narrow path, all we need is to follow Jesus. He will guide us, He will provide us with all the road signs we will ever need. It took me a long time to understand this. As I am sure many from my generation did, I decided I would be my own guide through life, picking and choosing which lessons I wanted to learn from the church. keeping some, discarding most. Unfortunately one result of this is we also failed to teach our children that there is a road map to life out there they can use. This has led to at least one, if not more, generations either falling away from or never joining the church. We see plenty of evidence of this each and every day.
In my last post I talked a little bit about discernment. I mentioned an article by Peter Kreeft. In the article he lists five general principles of discernment.
- Always begin with data
- Let your heart educate your mind
- Have a soft heart but a hard head
- All God’s signs should line up
- Look for the fruits of the Holy Spirit
If we don’t educate ourselves, we won’t know what the data is, how to educate our minds, how to soften our hearts, what God’s signs are or what the fruits of the spirit are. How can we follow if we don’t know what to follow?
Every day I am thankful for God waking me up to Him. Falling off that truck a few years ago woke me up and brought me back to the Catholic Church and the teachings of God and Jesus. While I certainly don’t claim to know everything, nor will I ever, I have come a long way and now I can follow the five principles Kreeft lists to help me discern God’s will.
Will I get to Heaven or am I still on the wide path? I don’t know for certain, but at least I feel I am heading in the right direction.
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