Have you ever asked yourself the question: did Jesus ever have to discern or was he always sure about what he was doing because he is the Son of God?

Sr. Maria Boulding, OSB, in her book The Coming of God, gives us some insight into that question.

“As Jesus grew throughout his life, his prayer grew with him, interacting all the time with his human discovery of life, persons, joy and suffering, and confronting him in his maturing love and understanding with the Father’s love and his own reality as Son. All along he had to work it out in human terms; ‘Son though he was, he learned obedience through the things he suffered.’

There were key moments, the leap of understanding, the sudden insight, the coming together of previously unrelated pieces of knowledge, the human mind works that way; a text you have heard or read hundreds of times hits you one day with a new meaning; or someone speaks to you and lights up far more than is evident from the words, because they formulate what was vaguely there in your mind without your realizing it. It seems that Jesus’ baptism was one of these moments of breakthrough; he heard the Father speak his love that day. ‘You are my Son, my Beloved, my Servant’: he knew it already, but now he knew it in a different way.

Still in the months that followed there was ignorance and risk, and the continual search for meaning. He had to listen in prayer and sensitize himself, walk in what light he had, try out something and fail, let go of his own plans in order to be available for the Father’s plans, and step out in courageous unknowing because the Father had said ‘Come.’ ”

As a meditation this month, I would recommend you imagine the Father’s voice speaking in your ear, “You are my Beloved Child.” This is what in reality God does say to us just as He said it to Jesus at his baptism. And really let yourself experience that love flowing around and through you. It is after his baptism that Jesus goes out into the desert to be alone with God and ‘discover’ his mission. It is only after that experience that he goes out and starts preaching about the kingdom. Jesus in his humanity probably couldn’t see all the steps of his future at once. Jesus does understand the frustration and impatience we ourselves go though when we are trying to discern something.

As God is calling you to a particular mission, you too need to recognize God loves you as His child. There is no ‘I’m not good enough, or I’m not worthy enough’ in God’s gaze upon you. The Father says to you too, ‘COME.’