Discreting Spiritual Discernment Summary

In “Discerning Spiritual Discernment” Horton discussed three major approaches; the Bull’s eye approach, the Wisdom approach, and the Relationship-formation approach.
• The bull’s eye approach – This being the more traditional view, this approach is to determine what God’s will is through prayer and looking for confirmation in external sign to make the right choices, and following through with those choices ;and therefore fulfill God’s perfect plan. This approach tends to be the most popular.
• Wisdom approach – In this approach the Christian depend on their God-given reasoning abilities, wise counsel, strengths, talents, and abilities. The Bible can either be the primary source for wisdom, or it can be the second source of wisdom used.
• Relationship-formation approach – This approach is becoming very popular. Understanding that God does not direct the Christian making every decision for them, nor does He leave the Christian with a set of principles to follow. But, God encourages the Christian to grow into maturity and to develop a good decision making process to discern the will of God.

Reading through the case study, it is apparent that the approach Thomas is using is the “The Bull eye’s approach.” He is beginning to see that the Lord is nudging him into a pastoral position. Although he is
I guess I am a more of a traditional person. The process that I go through when I have a decision to make is first I will collect all of the information I can and factor in what God says about the situation. Then I will immediately eliminate anything that goes against the word of God. Once, I have done that I seek God in prayer for the direction he wants me to go. “Confirmation of the correct choice may come intuitively, sometime described as an “inner peace” granted by the Holy Spirit. At other times, the answer may be confirmed through an external sign or perhaps a combination of the two. (Horton, 2009 p.