Janine Mason (00:00)
Hey and welcome to the conversation. You're with Janine Mason and we're talking this morning about the messy intersection of faith, family, and business. I have a question for you. Have you ever second-guessed yourself when it comes to hearing the voice of God or when it comes to actually just discerning whether you should go into business with somebody or whether you should invite them to look after your kids? All those decisions that we make day after day.
Well, if you've ever second guessed yourself, you're not alone, and I have a solution for you. Recently I had a number of conversations with all these different women, and really at the heart of what came out was I don't trust my ability to discern because I made one bad mistake. Charles Spurgeon said the difference between the discernment is not the difference between telling right from wrong. Most of us get that part right, but telling the difference between right
and almost right. And that's what these women that I was chatting with had discovered. Let me tell you about one of their stories. I was sitting with my friend and she told me how in her twenties she had got married to the guy of her dreams. She had waited and she had been diligent to wait for the right man. She was praying. She believed this was the one. They got married, had children and somewhere into the the marriage, the marriage fell apart.
And she went through a messy divorce, it was acrimonious, it was emotionally painful. And here she was now in her 50s, and she was telling me, you know what, I really just don't think I can trust my voice of discernment. And I said, Why can't you trust it? Well, I you know, I got married and I I got that so wrong, I just don't think I'm very good at it. And I said, Hang on a minute, let me ask you some questions. She said, Okay, let's talk.
What had become apparent to me is that one bad decision had led to the enemy lying to her and telling her that she was not great at discernment. And then she had put discernment in some ways aside and was second guessing everything that she was thinking or sensing. But I knew this lady and I know she's not only intelligent but she's very perceptive. I've watched her in social interactions, I've watched her.
And I know that she actually does have a strong sense of discernment. She actually can trust her instincts. So I began to ask her some questions and I said, Well, hey, listen, you were how old when you got married? She said, Well, I was in my twenties. I said, And how old are you now? She said, Well, you know, I'm I'm quite a bit older. Okay, so let's say it's twenty five years. I said, Are you still the same person that you were twenty five years ago? She said, Well
really. I said, no, you're absolutely you're not. When you're in your twenties, you are still very much learning. You are still being shaped. You are you're you're in the early stages of adulthood. And I said, here you are a mature woman. You're not the same person that you were in your twenties. And she sat back. I said, so even if you made the worst mistake of your life in your twenties, are you really going to hold it that against yourself? Here you are in your fifties, she said
I guess that's a good question. I said, I've another I have another question for you and she said, Yeah, what's that? And I said, Is it possible you didn't get it wrong? And she said, Well, no, it was it was awful. Well, you know, he was very much in love with me. He loved who I was when we got married. I said, But that's the point. At the point you got married, he was a great match for you. And she said, Yes. And I said, Well then what happened? She said, Well then when we got married, there were things that he found very attractive about
me
as a single woman, but being married to it, my strength, my personality, the bigness of who I am, he he wasn't able to cope with it. I said, so is it possible then that you didn't make a mistake, but actually that he made some decisions along the way where instead of embracing who you were and instead of growing in him o in himself to be able to be the best husband for you, he made decisions that actually stopped the marriage flourishing.
Hmm. She'd never thought of that. And I said, so you've been basing your ability to discern all these years on the fact that you got it wrong, but maybe you didn't get it wrong after all. She that's that's a good point. And I said, and you're not the same person as you were in your 20s. I could see the the cogs turning in her mind, and I could see her starting to see them some things differently. And I said, Well, let's ask let me ask you one last question. She said, okay.
I said, I bet if you were to think, you could pretty quickly come up with a whole lot of things where you got it right, where you sensed something was off, where you sensed you couldn't trust somebody, and you you were right. It it turned out that you were right. And she's and she said, Yes. And and she sat back again and I could see again her thinking. And I said, after a few minutes, she actually took some time. I said, What's happening? And she said,
My mind is actually being flooded with all the times that the sense I had inside was right. Isn't it interesting that one decision had been speaking to her about her ability to hear the voice of God, her ability to discern correctly, and that one decision that was had such a painful outcome then dismantled all the times that she got it right.
And where it left her was just second guessing every decision, every sense that she had. And that was a terrible place to be. The Lord gives us, His Holy Spirit lives inside of us, and part of the way he communicates is without words. And often we just get a sense of what he is saying to us or what he is communicating to us. And and we don't always know how to put it into words or into
English or whatever language you speak. But if we discount the way that he impacts us and he and he communicates us on to on the inside, we're missing so much of what we need. And particularly in today's world where the techniques for deception are just only increasing in sophistication. Like it used to be if f somebody photoshopped something, it was pretty obvious. Now it's so seamless that you have to
have discernment to know if anything even that you're seeing in front of you is is real anymore. I find that it's really interesting. Andy and I will often walk and he'll say to me, hey, what is the Lord speaking to you? What is he saying? And I find that questions so kind of frustrating in a way because so often what the Lord is communicating to me doesn't have words.
And as we talk a little bit about discernment today, that's but that's one of the key things I want you to recognize that discernment for me at least, and I think for many others that I've talked to about it, doesn't have words. It just has an internal sense. So let's say you're trying to make a decision of whether to expand into a new city and everything looks good. You've done your research, you've done your due diligence, everything looks great, but something on the inside of you
Just feels hesitant. That's the voice of the Lord, that's the discernment spirit operating inside of you for whatever reason, where the Lord is saying, Yeah, don't go to that city. Maybe you're looking at a new hire and you've got your three applicants and you've done the interviews, you've done gone through their resumes, and you have come up with your favorite. But every time you think about hiring that person, there's just a little bit of a hesitation on
the inside.
You should do your due diligence. You should call the referees. You should check out everything that you have in the natural, but then you're missing something if you have learned to discount because you got it wrong one time, the voice or the the sense of discernment that's on the inside of you. That's where I think there's an epidemic. We have this gift, it gives us actually an advantage in business.
to know who to go into business with, to know who to hire, to know which market to expand into, to all sorts of things. The Lord wants to help us, but we've shut it down. And as I, like I said at the start, as I've had all these conversations, I recognize that many people, so many of us, maybe you today, are recognizing, man, I just have learned not to trust myself
Because I got it wrong this one time. Or maybe you've had a series of times that you just you missed it. I've missed it. my husband would say, Man, Janine, you're really discerning, but there are times when I've missed it or where I've discounted it. And I feel like there's this invitation in this season to step back into being aware of how and why that what the Lord is saying to us. Or and when I say saying, n again, not always with words. Hebrews five fourteen says
Solid food belongs to those who by reason of use have had their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. I don't know if you heard that part, but I want to emphasize who by reason of use have had their senses exercised to discern. By reason of use, it takes practice. Every gift that the Lord gives to us is given in seed form. And you have to work to actually to grow it and to hone it and to tune it.
when we have four kids and where each of them you've seen this happen. If you haven't seen it in your household then you've probably seen TikTok videos or Instagram videos of the kid that's learning to walk. What doesn't happen, at least in a reasonable household, is when that child is standing and they're teetering and they've learned to stand without holding onto the couch for the first time and they're standing there and they're about to take their first steps. When they plop down back onto their backside
Nobody is scolding them saying, Well, you know you failed that time. You probably are not meant to walk. No, we help them stand back up and we cheer them on and we say, we know that you've got this. We know that it's in your DNA to walk. And it's just a matter of time when you stick at it. Come on. And when they take their first steps, the whole room erupts and cheers like, yay, there's this big celebration. And there's the same is true for you.
Just because when you get started, you fall on your backside and you get it wrong does not mean that you are not good at discernment or that you don't have that gift. It just means you need to take some time to exercise it. First Timothy 4 14 says, Don't neglect the gift that was given to you. Don't don't neglect it, don't put it to the side, but actually become aware of it. Here's the problem I've I've seen is that particularly for us in business.
We have learned to do our due diligence. And that's a good thing. You should never stop doing due diligence on any decision. Discernment doesn't replace due diligence, it becomes part of your due diligence. And so we learn to do that. We have all our numbers, we have our spreadsheets, we have all the rational arguments of why we should and shouldn't do things.
And the trouble with discernment is that sometimes it goes against our rational mind. And the the challenge with that is you have to decide then what you're gonna trust. when we were in our early married life, Andy and I, I I have lived lived with discernment for a long time. And so and Andy tends to be at the opposite end of the spectrum. He is very trusting, he is will take anything that anybody says as the truth.
And so we would meet a new person and Andy would be engaged with him and having a great time and then he'd walk away and like, I'm really gonna spend some time. That guy asked me to really engage with him and help him grow. And so I'm gonna help that young man and I'd be like, That's fantastic, honey. Hey, just just go slow. Like take your time getting to know. Don't invest too much time until you see what he does with. No, I'm gonna invest all this time.
And he would it time after time he would invest the time only to find out that that young man who was asking to be mentored wasn't really serious, soaked up a lot of his time, but then didn't do anything with it. And after a while, it took numerous times of Andy ignoring what I was saying to realize actually most of the time when my wife says that, she actually what she had anticipated turned out to be right.
And so there's often a two ends of the spectrum, those who are naturally just very, very trusting. And for them, you need to come back in and realize that the Lord wants to help you discern and he wants to help you from investing too much time with the person who's not serious, or investing in a firm that isn't going to work out well, or hiring the guy that is not going to work out well for you. The other end of the spectrum is those who are too discerning or
actually highly suspicious and they call it discerning. And many of us have met those people and often it's because they've been hurt, they have been they perhaps have unforgiveness and bitterness in their heart and now they look through this lens that everyone nobody can be trusted. Now to be honest, when I'm behind the wheel we live in the Nashville area and the Nashville area for me has like got some of the worst drivers that I've experienced right around the country.
And I was thinking as I drove the other day, I trust nobody, nobody's driving when I'm behind the wheel because I want to anticipate them as they often do, swerving in and crossing me in front and just doing all manner of craziness. Now it's fine for me to approach driving like that. It's actually a smart way to drive when you live in the Dashville area. But if I approach life like that and I'm always looking for the negative thing.
Something is off. Something has, I have to pay attention to my heart and realize, man, I have let the cares of life cause me to be suspicious. And I better be careful not to call that discernment. So how do you tell the difference between discernment and suspicion? Because I find that lots of people call suspicion discernment. Because they want it to suspicion sounds not good. Discernment sounds very spiritual.
It actually is people operating in suspicion. Well, how do you tell the difference? Here's what I find: discernment is a gift from the Lord. And so because it's part of who He made me to be, the way He speaks to me, it comes with grace to still love the person. It comes with ability to say, Man, maybe I'm discerning something over there. Maybe I'm discerning I shouldn't go into business with you, but I can still be friends with you. I can still
show love and honor to you. Suspicion says, Yeah, you're really bad. And I am going to use that as an excuse to cut off. I find that in discernment, because the Lord not only loves me, his daughter, but the other person that maybe I'm discerning something about, he is not going to show me their dirty laundry. He is simply going to give me a sense on the inside, don't proceed with going into business. Don't proceed with
hiring that person. Here's a thought that I think people get hung up on. I let's say I am again go back to the hiring analogy. I've got three applicants, I have my top applicant, but I just have a hesitation. If I listen to that, I can rationally conclude there's something wrong with that person. Maybe they've got deep dark sin and that's why the Lord is suggesting don't go ahead.
The truth is it could be anything. It could be that the Lord is trying to protect them from you in the sense of that's not the best that I have for you in this situation. It could be that that person is about to get in a couple of months' time a brand new, wonderful opportunity that's going to take them out. And the Lord is trying to protect you from doing all the the time, the effort and the money of training that person only to have them leave. See
When I trust that the Lord is working on my behalf, I don't need to know the why. I just simply need to listen to the hesitation. Here's where it gets tricky. And this has happened for Andy and I so many times. let's say again we meet a new guy and he's fantastic and we both enjoy him. And now Andy says, I'm thinking about hiring him to be a part of our company.
And I get a sense of hesitation. And he says, Well, tell me why you don't want to hire him. I'm like, I it's not I don't want to hire him. I just I get a sense that we shouldn't. He says, Well, do you not like him? I I like him, Andy. I like that guy really well. But I just have a sense that we shouldn't hire him. So the next day Andy will come to me again and he'll say, Why d let's call him Bob.
Why don't you like Bob? No, Andy, I I like Bob really well. I just get a sense that we shouldn't hire Bob. I feel like the Lord's saying that we shouldn't. Now, if pressure continues to come, finally, and Andy keeps asking me to justify what I'm saying without recognizing that is simply a sense that I have on the inside. What happens is that the pressure causes me to start to look at Bob. Why don't I?
Why don't I think Bob? And I start to really scrutinize all the things that Bob does and says, and I think, man, well, he does get kind of irritating when he does that. Or I'll focus in on maybe he has something in his past and I'll look things up. Now I'm I've changed from feeling from operating in discernment to operating in suspicion and to being critical. And so the next time Andy comes and talks to me about Bob, I'll leave like
Well, you know what? He is kind of annoying in that situation and he does have kind of a sketchy past. I have changed now from operating out of a pureness of just hearing the Lord and sensing Lord, not needing to know, not looking for anything negative, to moving in a spirit of spirit of criticism. And now when Andy says, Well, you just don't like him, he's justified because I actually now not so sure I do like Bob.
This is the dynamic that happens over and over. And what we need to learn to do when we have discerned something, when we get a sense that we shouldn't proceed, is simply to say, I can't give you an a rational explanation for that. I just have a deep sense on the inside that this is what we should or shouldn't do. So here's what I want to give you. I want to give you a few tips on.
how to operate, how to grow in and it really is practice, but how do you put some safety around this this gift of discernment and particularly in the workplace? Here here's the first thing I would say and I I've kind of said it already, but be wary of discernment, discernment that makes you want to disconnect from people. And particularly if it ends up being really critical or negative, I can have a sense not to proceed.
And still say stay in great friendship with that person. Decide not to proceed to go into business with them, not to hire them. Just am like, no, this is not the right thing. Again, the Lord loves that person and even if it is because of sin, He doesn't need to tell you about their sin to protect you from going into business with them. Be willing to follow your sense, even if it doesn't make sense.
rational sense. We talked about that in the sense of hiring. This is the best person. And yet I have a I have a sense that we should go with the the other person. Be willing to trust the Lord even when it doesn't make sense to your rational wisdom. Don't fall into the trap of becoming critical. Don't fall into the trap of having to give words for what you sense other than I have a deep internal sense that we should not
proceed. And if you're in a situation where your boss is like, well, that's not good enough, then just allow the boss to make the decision. What happens is that you then get a track record if it all falls to pieces later, where you have done that two or three times, you'll find by the third or fourth time your partner, your spouse, your boss is willing a little more willing to listen to that deep internal sense that you have.
I started this podcast with the story of my friend who married somebody in their twenties and was still holding on to that th sense of I can't do this in their 50s. All of us get it wrong. All of us miss it. Be willing to let go of though that sense of I'm not made for this because you were hurt because by the decision that you made in the past. Well, you missed it. Be gracious to yourself.
We're all just toddlers learning to walk. And the more that we practice, the more that we tune in, the more that we hear. The last thing I want to just speak to is be aware of your own biases. Now this hasn't happened to me, but if I had been abused by a big Canadian guy with a red beard, every time I meet a big Canadian guy with a red beard, I'm likely
Just in my soul to be triggered. I'm likely to have a reaction. If I haven't totally forgiven, if I'm not totally healed, then every time that somebody comes that reminds me of that person, it is I am much more likely to react to them to have a sense of ooh, be careful of that one. Be aware of those areas.
Because and and get wise counsel if you are looking to hire a big Canadian guy with a red beard and you've had a an issue with someone like that in the past and you're like, I'm not sure if we can trust this guy. That's when you get other people around you and you just are open like I had a bad experience and I'm not sure I can trust what I'm sensing in this one because I recognize my own bias. I want to bless you.
Today, to have an increase in your discernment. I want to bless you to have the courage to try again if you've got it wrong and that you had emotionally bad consequences, financially bad consequences of a past decision that didn't go well. I bless you to know that the Holy Spirit dwells inside of you and that he speaks to you constantly. He wants to help you. And a lot of his speaking, a lot of his communication.
doesn't have words, it just simply is a sense of, yes, I can move forward with great peace or I have a hesitation. I bless you to listen to the hesitations, to vi listen to the voice of God and to trust that what you're hearing is from him. Have a great day.
Andy Mason (23:06)
You've just been listening to Janine Mason talking to you and training effectively you on discernment, how to grow in discernment so that we don't just know what's right and wrong, but we know the difference between what's right and almost right. Critical in our time, in our days, whether you're in a workplace, in a professional life, wherever you're at, so critical. Here's a couple of things that if this is helpful and you wanna go deeper, here's how. Number one,
Janine is working one-on-one with a number of individuals. And hey, I'm proof of this. 27 years of married, I am the benefit of those questions and coaching that she has done, but also seeing those reports come back from clients that I've personally seen and testified the changes in their life are really significant. If you want to start with her, I'm gonna post a link below, have a conversation, find out what that is about, and you can work one-on-one with her. Secondly,
you can work with both of us. We've launched a growth path. Now the growth path is for those that are serious about engaging with God and building a partnership with him on a foundation of hearing his voice, of knowing what kingdom business is, strategic planning, core business systems, the different components that we've learned and implied and taken the best of what we've got over the last 15 years. And we've put that together in an intentional mentoring discipleship program that's a 12 month program.
So it's a serious commitment. If you wanna find out more about that, we're post the link below and the next cohort, small group is starting. It's in person, like live online. You get to be a part of some of the events that we do and we're training you on an ongoing basis and then bringing in friends of ours that are masterclass subject matter experts that will train you to partner with God, build better business and multiply kingdom impact.
