DISCERNMENT OF A VOCATION How do we choose the path we do? And how does anyone know for sure that God is calling them to do what they do or what their vocation is? The answer to these questions is what we call “discernment.” Discernment is a very important topic for young people as they look to their future. The first thing that is very important to know is that God does have a plan for your life and for everyone’s life. Sometimes it can be a bit frightening to be open to this plan or even to think about what God may want of you. But the first step to a very happy life is to know that whatever God wants of you is what is best way to a life of happiness! For some reason, it’s easy to think that whatever God wants us to do will be hard and will somehow make us unhappy. Sure, in theory we all know that this is not true. But in practice it can be hard to actually believe that God’s plan will make us happier than anything we could choose by ourselves. So my first suggestion for those trying to figure out the path for their lives is to stop and simply acknowledge that God DOES have a wonderful plan for us! Once you come to actually believe that truth it’s important that you say yes to it. But that’s the tricky part! It’s “tricky” because God will usually want us to say “yes” to His plan even before we know what it is. This requires trust and surrender. This is hard because we often want to know all we are getting into before we agree to it. But with God, we have to know and trust that He will take care for us and that we will be happy with whatever He has in mind for us. So our prayer may look like this: “Lord, whatever you want of me I will do! I do not know your will right now but I say yes to it anyway and trust that you will show me your plan when I need to know it.” In fact, saying yes to God’s will before we fully understand it is often the key to having God begin showing us what He wants. Personally, I found out that discerning God’s plan for one’s life is usually very slow and consistent. What I mean is that, as we go through the time of discernment, you will slowly and steadily grow in a conviction of where God is leading you. There would be no loud and clear signs for you to see. Rather, it will be a gentle Voice that slowly becomes clearer and clearer over time. In the end, when you’re ready to make the final decision, you would discover that your conviction would be so strong, that you’ll be convinced that it must be God Who is leading you there. As for knowing for sure, I do believe it’s possible to know with deep certitude. It’s just a matter of silencing the many thoughts and ideas we have and letting go of all our own preferences and letting God’s will take over. All I can say is that you will know it when that happens. In fact, this sort of certitude, which we call the gift of faith, can ultimately become much clearer to us than anything else if we only allow it speak to us!