"Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed" (Proverbs 15:22)
When is the last time you asked someone for counsel? When is the last time you asked multiple people for counsel on the same issue? Too often we think we are smart enough to make decisions on our own and yet the Book of Proverbs remind us that there is safety in a multitude of counselors (Prov 11:14; 12:15; 19:20; 20:18).
I would suggest to you that the more important the decision, the more necessary it is for corporate wisdom. We do ourselves a disservice to live n independent lives of considering the wisdom of the godly.
Why this? Jerry Bridges gives one answer to this question – "Our wisdom lies in self-distrust, or at least allowing for the possibility that we may often be wrong! So it is most expedient, especially in important matters, to seek experienced counsel." To live independent of the counsel of others is to show the arrogance of our hearts.
Consider Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses who came to Moses to give him the rightful counsel that he needed help leading and judging the Hebrews in the wilderness (Exod 18). Without this counsel, Moses' plans to lead his people to the Promised Land would have failed. And if Moses refused to hear Jethro, he would have burned out spiritually in the wilderness.
We should not make decisions in a vacuum. Remember that King Ahasuerus has 7 counselors who helped guide him (Esth 1).
Why do we do all this? We have biases; we have blind spots; we can be rash. We need others who know us well to tell us what we need to hear and not just what we want to hear.
Next time, you have a decision to make, before you think, "Here is what I am going to do," ask, "Who should I talk to about this?"
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