Strength for Today Devotional
"For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety." Proverbs 24:6
Life is made up of decisions. We can be wrong on some minor decisions and merely change course with little or no damage. However, being wrong on major decisions can send us over the falls with disastrous consequences. In my leadership course on how to know God's will, heavy stress is laid on getting wise counsel from others before making life-impacting decisions, not afterwards when hindsight is 20/20 but where foresight is no longer an option.
When facing big decisions, get all the advice you can from as many directions as you can. Blessed is the Christian who has some solid, sold out to the Lord, scriptural friends he or she can count on for such counsel. I like to seek out those with some gray hairs that come through time and experience. They have often learned--the hard way--the road we want to avoid if possible. But remember that the words of human counselors are never to act as a substitute for the will of your heavenly Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom we must learn to seek first and foremost.
That's why the attaining of wise counsel before decisions such as marriage, entering into debt, changing jobs, entering the ministry, greater service to your church, etc. is only one part of learning the Father's will. Other irreplaceable parts are:
1. a desire to do God's will above anything else;
2. developing a personal foundation based on daily time in the Word of God;
3. learning not to run on every inner impression but to...
4. test every impression, word, prophecy, vision, etc. to see if such lines up with Scripture and
5. placing all decisions before the Lord through prayer. Add to these five the attaining of godly counsel, and most of your decisions will turn out to bring blessings and not explosions.
My Prayer:
“Thank You, my Lord, for showing me that I am not an island but part of a whole. Teach me to humbly seek counsel from others who have the wisdom of experience.”