Spiritual Discernment and Career Counseling

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1883) said, “Each man has his own vocation, his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him.” (p. 112). He was speaking of the gifts granted us by God to fulfill the plan that He has for our life. Discovering and utilizing those gifts is part of the decision making process in career counseling. Christians advocate the use of spiritual discernment in order to guide the decision making process. Properly interpreting the will of God for one’s life is at the heart of each of our choices including those choices involving vocation.

Personal Position

Horton (2009) provides an inventory to assess one’s personal spiritual discernment approach. In taking this assessment, I found that I answered all of the statements with “very important”. Indeed, each statement played a large role in my decision making process with respect to my current vocational pursuits, as well as other aspects of my life. As such, I found it more fruitful to prioritize the statements. Once completed, the results showed that my top three were: Consistency with the character/ethics of Jesus, praying for wisdom to make Godly decisions and Consulting with wise counsel. Given my manner of completing the survey as well as the resulting answers, I originally placed myself in the “Bull’s-Eye Approach” (p. 8). My problems with the approach led me to alter my assessment, however, and go toward the “Relationship-Formation Approach” (p. 11).

Horton (2009) reports that the bull’s-eye approach posits that God’s will is that each of us fulfills a pre-planned destiny. It states that Christians are prevented by God from straying too far afoul of the plan and that the goal is for each one to find the “right” decisions...

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... with God that includes consistent prayer, seeking wise counsel, studying scripture and looking for God’s divine intervention will reveal her destination.

Works Cited

Emerson, R. L. (1883). The works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. London, UK: MacMillan Company.

Horton, D. J. (2009). Discerning spiritual discernment: Assessing current approaches for understanding God’s will. The Journal of Youth Ministry, 7(2), 7-31.

Nichols, J. L. (2006). Balancing intuition and reason: Tuning in to indecision. Journal of Rehabilitation, 72(4), 40-48.

Niles, S. G. (2009). Career development interventions in the 21st century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Thompson, E. & Feldman, D.B. (2010). Let your life speak: Assessing the effectiveness of a program to explore meaning, purpose and calling with college students. Journal of Employment Counseling, 47(1), 12-19.