It was a long time ago, but I remember one contestant on television’s “What’s My Line” whose occupation completely stumped the panel. With a triumphant grin on his face, the guest finally identified himself as a “chicken sexer” employed in a hatchery to sort newborn chicks by sex.
Years later I toured a hatchery and observed a chicken sexer at work. At the rate of a thousand or more per hour, he grasped each fuzzy yellow chick and identified its gender instantly. Female chicks went to the hen houses to produce eggs. The roosters-to-be, on the other hand, started out on their inexorable journey toward the congenial colonel’s secret blend of 13 herbs and spices. Although I observed him for a long time, I never determined how the chicken sexer made his judgment so quickly and surely. Was it because he had only two choices open to him?
At about that same time, I toured a leather warehouse. Hides from all over the world were sorted and then distributed to artisans who would fashion thousands of different leather products. In the center of the frantic warehouse activity, amid piles and piles of hides, stood the “hide grader.” Constantly moving among the hundreds of bundles, the hide grader made a judgment about each hide. To me, they all looked the same. Yet the hide grader sorted them into 20 or more different categories. Without pausing in his sorting, he spoke of differences in color, smell, weight, pliability, and strength.
The key to the hide grader’s judgments was more than these characteristics, I learned. It was the grader’s ability to assess accurately for each hide how it could best be treated and “worked.” He envisioned what that hide could become. He discerned its potential for usefulness and beauty.
“Do you reject many hides?” I asked.
“Nope, not me,” he said. “Anybody can sort out the junk. I only work with the good stuff and make sure it ends up the very best it can be.”
The chicken sexer and the hide grader go about their work not too many miles apart. Both judge quickly and confidently. Yet their decision-making processes differ. The chicken sexer chooses between two clear alternatives. The hide grader’s options are complex, measured in nuances and degrees, laden with value and vision.
Life’s choices are like that. Some choices—actually only a few—have two straightforward options. I choose between true and false, right and wrong. It is a relatively easy matter, even though I sometimes choose wrongly.
Usually, however, choosing is difficult. Judgment, insight, and vision are necessary. I must practice discernment. And sometimes I can only hope to discern the least among several evils.
Choosing among a host of alternatives, each encrusted with emotions, habits, and entangling considerations, is painfully hard. Alternatives may be full of promise or full of threat. Seldom can I anticipate all the consequences. Sometimes I am not even aware of all the alternatives available. Time for reflection is always short. I must judge, decide, act. That is my predicament. Paul understood our great need for discernment. He prayed for the Philippian believers that they would have both the knowledge and the discernment necessary to minister in faithfulness to Christ. The thrust of Paul’s prayer on behalf of the Philippians was not only that they might have the discerning capacity to make the best choices, but also that they might become the best people, growing always more into the likeness of Christ. That is what I want for myself.
The older I get the more I realize that discernment comes as a gift from God. As discernment comes to characterize me more, I will choose those courses of action that will really matter. With God’s help I can decide with confidence the more excellent way. I even dare to hope that my family, colleagues, and casual acquaintances, including the chicken sexer and the hide grader, will recognize that God has increased my capacity for genuine discernment. Pray as Paul did that I may increasingly become a man who discerns the mind of Christ and acts upon it.
