What Murder Mysteries Can Teach Us About Discernment
Do you have means, motive and opportunity?
I love a good murder mystery. A “whodunit” is my favourite relaxing genre to read because at the end, the sleuth gathers everyone in a room to answer all the questions, set wrongs to right, and unravel the confusing sequence of events in a way that suddenly makes logical sense. I find it deeply gratifying to close a book with all problems solved.
Real life, though? It’s not always so satisfying.
When we’re wrestling with a question or problem, we often want God to be the problem solver who sits us down to reveal and explain everything.
That will happen at the end of time, of course, but until then, discernment in this life entails our acceptance of the fact that not everything has a neat and tidy, clear-cut answer.
Still, even though God is probably never going to act like Hercule Poirot for us, I think there’s something we can learn from the famous sleuths in murder mysteries: to pay attention to what we’re looking for without getting distracted.
What the Sleuth Looks For
A good murder mystery has lots of “red herrings” - facts or clues that are irrelevant to the main question of who committed the crime, but that may reveal something about a character or sub-plot. The best sleuths take in all the information, but they don’t let a red herring lead them astray, because they stay focused on three main things: means, motive, and opportunity.
Means: did the suspect have the means - the ability - to commit the crime? (If a heavy object was used, for example, do they possess the strength to lift it?)
Motive: does the suspect possess a strong enough reason to actually have done it? (Is anger over losing a job motivation enough for murder?)
Opportunity: were they in the right place at the right time? (If there’s no way they could have left the house without being seen, there’s no way they could have been at the boathouse where the crime was committed.)
The murderer always has all three - if one is missing, they simply couldn’t have done it.
What To Look For When Discerning
Now, hopefully none of us is discerning murder or anything like it! :) Of course, the whole point of discernment is that what we’re considering is either positively good or at least morally neutral. If we’re faced with a decision between two options, one of which is good and one of which is evil, there’s really no discernment needed.
But if we’re trying to discern something good or neutral, it can help our discernment to consider our various options like they’re characters in our whodunit. Do we have means, motive, and opportunity for them?
Means: is this a thing I’m actually capable of doing?
Motive: do I want to do it, enough?
Opportunity: is this in the right place at the right time in my life?
Now, let’s look at some practical examples to see how applying these categories would look in real-life discernment scenarios.
Example 1: “Should I do mission work?”
Jane wants to be a missionary. She’s always dreamed of travelling to far off places - the desert, the jungle, remote islands - to bring people the gospel. She’s pretty good with foreign languages and likes camping. She’s single in her early twenties and is researching organizations that she could volunteer with.
But Jane also has been diagnosed with some health problems. She’s ok but needs a very particular regime of specialized medication and sometimes several days of rest at a time, usually unpredictably. She’s spoken to a few volunteer groups and is trying to decide which one is the best fit.
Jane clearly has motive - this is something that’s been on her heart, and her actions of taking time to research and speak to people also reveals that this isn’t just a dream but something she’s motivated enough to take action on.
She also has opportunity - she’s young and single and there are organizations that are willing to work with her.
In many ways, Jane also has the means to do it. She likes foreign languages and is pretty good at them. She doesn’t mind camping, which is the closest first-world equivalent she can get to trying out life in the jungle. But does Jane have the health for it? This is a key question that she’s going to have to wrestle with, because even if everything else is in place, she may actually lack the means to do the daily work of the life she’s contemplating. If she can’t get the medication she needs whilst living on a remote island, or can’t get out of bed for many days at a time, missionary life might not be the best fit for her.
Notice in this example that the answer may not be 100% clear-cut: that’s on purpose. Life rarely is! Discernment is usually something we practice when things aren’t simple.
Jane may be able to source medication, and she may not have any need for significant rest, or she may find a situation in which the community around her can absorb that. Those are factors she’ll need to consider in her discernment.
Example 2: “I’m going to marry her!”
Brian wants to marry Kim. He met her at church event where they were put on the same “pub quiz” team and connected over their shared love of music and history. They’ve gone on a few dates and it seems to be going well. Brian is convinced that she’s his future wife.
He certainly has the means to marry her - he’s single and has a job that can support a family, and, perhaps more importantly, a willingness to work hard even if he lost his job.
He has the motive as well - he’s convinced that she’s the one for him.
But does he have the opportunity? Is he in the right place at the right time? This is a question that Brian actually can’t answer on his own.
Only together can Brian and Kim decide if it is indeed, the right time and place for them to be married. They may not have enough information about or knowledge of each other. Or maybe Brian thinks he does, but Kim thinks she doesn’t. If that’s the case, there is no opportunity.
Again, this isn’t clear cut: perhaps there’s no opportunity now but there will be in the future. Brian’s discernment can’t be based on the hypothetical, though. It has to be based on reality: the current opportunity in front of him, which may simply be to ask whether or not he wants to continue going out with Kim, or would like to meet her family, or has deeper questions he wants to talk about.
Example 3: “Should I go professional with my art?”
Lila and James have been married for 15 years. They have 4 kids and a baby on the way. Lately Lila’s been feeling an urge to start painting in a serious way. She was an art major at university and over the years would volunteer at her kid’s school to paint scenery for play or even murals on the classroom walls. She’s watching a lot of women on instagram post their work and she’s feeling a little jealous. Her pastor has approached her about doing a painting for their church. It would be paid work and she’s not sure she’s up for the task.
The opportunity is clear. And Lila has the means in so far as she is capable of doing the work, but the questions for her discernment revolve around (a) her ‘means’ in the wider context of her life, and (b) her motive.
What’s the timeline for the painting being finished? How does she feel about painting a lot while pregnant? Does it energize her or exhaust her? Will it take her away from other commitments? Is she happy to get help in the other areas that will be neglected while she paints?
Lila also has a chance to practice honesty about her own motives. Does she want more professional success primarily out of jealousy? Does she want to paint as a way to use her gifts for others? Is she doing it to prove herself? To make the world a more beautiful place? Chances are that her motives are mixed, but trying to sort them out honestly will allow her to act from something (mostly) positive rather than (mostly) negative.
Summary
Discernment is rarely simple and straightforward, but identifying helpful questions to ask can aid us in sifting what’s relevant, timely, or useful, to our considerations.
“Means, Motive, and Opportunity” isn’t an infallible guide, but in our ordinary lives, these categories offer us practical ways of approaching the questions we’re holding and the decisions we want to make.
Your turn: have you ever used the categories of “means, motive, opportunity” in your discernment? How did it go?
If you applied these to something you’re discerning now, how might it help?
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These are great questions, Kerri. I most often get stuck in the “means” — the actual physical limitations of time and energy. Because it doesn’t actually matter how much I want to do something, or how great it might be, if I physically don’t have enough hours in the day, or it will make me sick. The magical thinking can really get you.
In my imaginary life I can do everything! And I don’t need to eat or sleep! And I’ll never get tired! 😂🤪 (still working this idea of radical acceptance of reality)
Like Ruth, you had me at “murder mystery.” 😊 What a great way to practice discernment in a discrete way! This will help me consider some things in my life with a level of removal that I need. After all, Hercule and Miss Marple, not to mention Sherlock, didn’t let their emotions get in the way of weeding out red herrings! Thanks for this.