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Have You Been Making Decisions Without Counsel? · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Track 1: You're careful about big decisions. You pray about
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  them, think them through, and talk to somebody before you
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  commit. So you do the right things. You floated the idea to
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  a friend or sibling, and you felt better when they said go
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  for it. But are you really asking for advice? We already
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  know who will agree with us. We'll come back to that. But
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  first,
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  welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Léger. I
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  thank God for my board. I'll bring an idea to them that I'm
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  already sold I've prayed about it, and I've thought it through.
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  Or, I think I have. Mostly, I'm looking for a green light. And
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  every so often, one of them will stop and ask a simple question I
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  hadn't considered. Often, it's just for clarification, but
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  other times, there's something I hadn't considered in my
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  calculation. And I'd be lying if I said that always feels good in
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  the moment. I've walked out of a meeting or two a little deflated.
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  I've also been kept from decisions I would have probably
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  regretted because somebody in that room cared more about the
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  outcome than about keeping me comfortable. A lot of Christians
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  make the big calls on their own. The job change, the way to
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  handle a conflict in the family. You pray about it, which is the
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  right instinct and the right thing to do. And then you decide,
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  which is usually pretty early. Bye-bye, folks. Some of us do
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  ask. We just ask in a way that can't tell us anything we don't
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  already believe. Solomon said this in Proverbs 11: 14: wise
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  leadership, a nation falls. There is safety in having many
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  advisors. You may know it in the older wording where there is no
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  counsel, the people perish or the people fall. But in the
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  multitude of counselors, there's safety. Both of these are
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  working on the same Hebrew. Start with the word, translated,
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  counsel.
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  People trace it back to the rope connected to a ship's rudder. So,
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  the picture behind it is the lines that work a ship's rudder.
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  Without steering, a ship can go down in a storm. That changes
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  what the proverb is asking for. A voice that only agrees with
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  you never touches the wheel. Steering requires somebody
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  willing to turn it. Then look at how big Solomon makes the stakes.
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  He says that same steering word in Proverbs 20 where he says,
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  "Plans succeed through good counsel, and don't go to war
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  without wise advice." He uses it again in Proverbs 24 where
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  victory depends on having many advisors. "Nations and armies
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  both Solomon had every ordinary example available to him and he
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  reached for the high-stakes pictures in the world." That
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  tells you what he thought was writing on this. And Solomon's
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  own son gave us the case study. 1 Kings 12: "Rehoboam takes the
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  throne and asks the elders who had served his father what he
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  should do." "They tell him to lighten the load on the people,
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  and the people will serve him for life." Well, he doesn't like
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  that answer. So he calls in the young men he grew up with, and
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  they tell him to tighten the screws. He goes with his friends.
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  Ten of the twelve tribes walked out, and the kingdom never came
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  back together. So read the proverb "with that in mind,
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  without wise steering and nationfalls. Rehoboam had the
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  council standing in the building, but he went and got a second
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  opinion he liked better." Now, count the advisors. The word's
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  many, and it's plural in both renderings. One friend who tells
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  you "yes" is a sample of one, and you pick the word we read as
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  "safety." The Hebrew is from the root that gives us the words for
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  saving and rescue. The same word gets translated as victory over
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  in Proverbs 24. So what council provides, in Solomon's
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  vocabulary, is closer to a rescue than to a good idea. When
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  we face a big decision, we tend to go to the people who will
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  cheer us on. Call them "yes men," the friends who encourage
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  us and tell us what we want to hear. We walk away feeling
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  supported, and nothing about our plan ever got tested. True
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  counsel, though, is different. It means handing your decision
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  to a couple of mature believers and giving them permission to
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  push back, to say the part you'd rather not scripture, and then
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  going and finding people willing to disagree with you if that's
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  necessary. That's the kind of counsel Proverbs call "safety,"
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  and it's often how God answers a prayer you thought you'd already
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  settled. Here's today's challenge: Take the decision
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  you've been turning over in your head, then pick two mature
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  believers who you know well and who have never been afraid to
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  tell you something you didn't want to hear. Go to them this
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  week and let them know what you're are leaning toward and
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  then ask them straight out what they'd push back on. And then
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  give them the permission because most people won't take it unless
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  you hand it to them. And then listen all the way to the end of
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  what they say. You'll want to start defending the plan around
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  sentence two, probably, but listen to them and take what
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  they say to heart. Father, Solomon's set of people without
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  steering goes down. He put the word for rescue on the council
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  of many. Thank you that you built your church to think
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  together so that no one of us has to see the whole thing alone.
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  For everybody listening who has already decided and is looking
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  for agreement, give them the humility to go and ask somebody
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  who loves them and what they'd push back on. Let us hear you
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  through the people you put around us. In Jesus' name, amen.
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  This podcast runs on the generosity of listeners just
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  like you. If Daily Devotions for Busy Lives has encouraged you,
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  would you consider supporting it with a one-time gift or by
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  becoming a monthly supporter? Every contribution helps keep
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  these devotions coming every week. You can give at
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  dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support . Thank you so much, and thanks
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  for joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives.
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  Remember, the word under council is a steering word, and a voice
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  that only agrees never turns the wheel. Ask two people what
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  they'd push back on. Come back next time for encouragement to
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  help you live grounded in God's truth. Until then, God bless and
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  have a great day.