Spiritual Discernment and Career Counseling Essay -- Religion, Spiritu

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1883) said, Each man has his own vocation, his talent is his call. There is angiotensin-converting enzyme 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 heart. Discovering and utilizing those gifts is part of the decision making run in career counseling. Christians barrack the use of spiritual discernment in order to guide the decision making process. Properly interpreting the will of God for ones life is at the heart of each of our choices including those choices involving vocation.Personal PositionHorton (2009) provides an inventory to assess ones 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 m ore fruitful to prioritize the statements. Once completed, the results showed that my croak 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 Bulls-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 bulls-eye approach posits that Gods 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... ... with God that includes consistent prayer, seeking wise counsel, studying scripture and looking for Gods divine intervention will bump her destination.Works CitedEmerson, 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 Gods will. The Journal of Youth Ministry, 7(2), 7-31.Nichols, J. L. (2006). Balancing intuition and reason tune 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 programme to explore meaning, purpose and calling with college students. Journal of Employment Counseling, 47(1), 12-19.