EP 85

Welcome to the Smiling at the Future podcast.
My name is Christi Rose and this is my pursuit to glean practical wisdom on femininity, home making, finances, relationships and singleness from the God fearing men and women in my life. Hope you enjoy this journey with me as we learn to smile at the future.

Thank you for coming back for another wisdom packed episode. But first, a fun update for you all. We are offering a free 8 by 10 printable on our website called The Singleness Manifesto. It has eight points to help you stay grounded and to keep your focus and priorities straight in your singleness. And to give you a sneak peek, I’m going to read the first point on that manifesto. It is. I will embrace the season of Singleness as God’s Plan A for my life, so click the link for the website in the show notes to print that out. In addition, the podcast has collaborated with N Verde Stationers, who are also sponsoring this episode to design 12 beautiful Verse cards to display at your home or on your desk at work. The collection is called Smiling at the Future and I actually have a set on my work desk and I cycle through one a day and it just helps keep my mind fixed on things above and Verde Stationers is owned by Laura and her sister Melissa, and Laura is the one who does such a fantastic job on all the social media. For this podcast, Laura and Melissa have graciously offered a 10% off discount to the listeners of the Smiling at the Future podcast for anything in their Etsy store. So go to the website smiling@thefuturepodcast.com and they’ll have the link to their store on our site.

Chris Hamilton hit another home run with this episode on Seeking counsel for life decisions. And this is the kind of wisdom topic that gets me so excited because it’s so relevant for all of us and there’s so little out there in the form of books or resources that give guidance for us on how to seek counsel. So sit up and enjoy this one-of-a-kind episode with Chris Hamilton.

Welcome, Chris. It’s always a privilege to have you on the podcast because you are a man who is known for your discernment and your wisdom, and this podcast is about seeking wisdom for life. And today we’re going to be talking through the insurance and outs of seeking counsel for life decisions and everyone of us. We are all making decisions in life and Scripture, and specifically Proverbs speak on seeking counsel for navigating the complexities of life. Not every decision, though, is something we need to ask another person’s opinion about. So can you tell us what are the areas where we do need to seek counsel or where counsel is especially useful?

Well, let me first say hello to you and thank you for letting me come back. It’s an honor to be a part of your podcast and I know it has a faithful following the areas of life where I think counsel is useful. There’s two significant areas, one is understanding the Bible and the other is seeking wisdom. And I I think that boils most if not all counseling down to to those two categories. One is the first being, what does the Bible say? And then what does it mean? So if there’s an issue in life where you need counsel, that’s got to be the first question. And none of us have a perfect understanding of the Bible. So being able to go to someone and say, hey, there’s this issue in my life, does the Bible speak to it? And if it does, show me where and and then tell me how that passage or those passages apply to my situation and then how then should I live in light of that? And I I want to make clear here, this doesn’t mean that the counselor must be a pastor or seminary trained. All of us have access to the word. The Word of God is attainable for all of us and understandable for all of us, and but sometimes we just don’t have the knowledge of how the Bible might apply to this particular issue. Second Timothy 4, for example, says to preach the word, to be ready in season and out of season. And and that’s for the preacher. But listen to what it does for each of us. It reproves, it rebukes, it exhorts. And all of that speaks to the counsel that the word of God will give us. And that’s a reminder, by the way, that counsel is not always pleasant. The word of God might not be real comfortable to hear, and the counsel from the word of God might not be maybe what we’re expecting or hoping for. And that’s why it goes on to say in that same passage that some people will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled. They will accumulate for themselves teachers, in accordance with their own desires. That that’s important to remember that the immovable force of truth, particularly in a counseling situation, is really so helpful, but also can be uncomfortable.

And then the second area of life where counsel is useful to seeking wisdom, and I often say it this way, that wisdom comes into play when the Bible doesn’t explicitly speak to whether something is a sin or not a sin. Or maybe the Bible’s a little is silent on an issue. I’m pretty confident in saying that the Bible does not speak to where you should go to college, for example. So in that case, you’re really seeking wisdom in that particular example. And the Bible obviously speaks a lot to that. Proverbs one says a wise man will hear an increase in learning and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel. That speaks directly to that category of council of getting wisdom. And in Proverbs One it also says that wisdom shouts in the street. There’s a lot of wisdom available, and it calls those of us who ignore that kind of counsel naive, simple minded fools, scoffers. And the result is, and this is all in Proverbs One, the result of ignoring wise counsel is calamity, distress, anguish, and dread. That’s pretty stark. But those who turn towards the reproof of wisdom, it says in Proverbs One, it says, I will pour out my spirit on you, you will live securely, and you will be at ease from the dread of evil. So all of that speaks to that. We do need to be seeking the counsel of wisdom.

And let me say really quickly, Christi, this wasn’t in your question. You asked what counsel is useful. Well, I think again, understanding the Bible, seeking wisdom, there is counsel that’s not useful and that is going to someone and saying tell me what to do. Or getting counsel that’s unbiblical or worldly that is not useful, that is not helpful for the believer. Counsel that’s driven by fear or uncertainty, which is prevalent in our culture today, or getting counsel that’s always affirming and encouraging. If that’s the only counsel you’re getting, that may not be useful and you may be asking the wrong questions. So that’s kind of a contrast of useful counsel and counsel that may not be useful.

So many of us have different people we’re going to when we’re making a life decision, so do we. The the scripture speak to having an abundance of counselors. There is safety in that. Sometimes having an abundance of counselors can also be a little bit confusing because you may hear many different perspectives. So how many counselors should someone have in their life, and is it wiser to have more or fewer when making a decision?

Yeah, that’s a great question. And Proverbs 11, I think you were just referencing verse 14. There’s a huge contrast. It starts off saying where there is no guidance, the people fall, and then it says but in the abundance of counselors there is victory. So you have a whole range from none to abundance and Proverbs 18 says a man of too many comes to ruin, too many friends or influencers. So the question that you’re asking is how many? And I think it would be legalistic to define this too much. Somewhere between 0 and abundance. And I guess I would punt on that and say it’s not the number of counselors, it’s the quality of counsel. So if you’re seeking biblical counsel and and wise counsel, that necessarily in my experience will reduce the number of qualified counselors. And so you know, I I think on an issue you may not need more than one or two counselors. I don’t know that having a lot of counselors is helpful. In other words, if if you start getting too many counselors, you can easily fall into the thinking of, well, 3 counselors say I should go to this college. Two say I should go to that college. Now I really don’t know what to do or I’m going to go with three, three beats too. So that that’s not helpful. And ultimately what you you want to do, you have to make your decision and you want to know is there biblical principles that affect or would dictate this decision And if not then what? What is a wise decision? And and really on that kind of a decision, it’s preference and seeking counselors on a preference probably is not helpful.

That is a great point. You mentioned the the quality of the counselor, so can you elaborate what are the characteristics of someone who would be a discerning counselor?

I think, first of all, a discerning counselor needs to be a listener, and they need to hear you, and they also need to have a measure of humility. And I say that because they need to readily distinguish for you between what they’re opinion is versus thus saith the Lord. That is a important distinction, and a discerning counselor is going to make very clear to you that what I’m telling you now might be my personal preference or might be my wisdom, if you will, as opposed to this is what the Bible says and this is what you must do. I think of Hebrews 13, seven where it says that you remember those who led you or who counseled you. They spoke the word of God, and considering their conduct, you imitate their faith. And this highlights another measure of a discerning counselor in that their life is consistent with their own counsel. So just to be blunt, you shouldn’t be getting marriage advice or marriage counsel from a divorced counselor necessarily, or somebody who’s going through a divorce. That’s that. That just wouldn’t make any sense. And so a discerning counselor is also one whose life matches the counsel that they’re giving you, James, 313 says. Who among you is wise and understanding the next words is not. Their words are pithy and and very clever. The definition of those who are wise and understanding in James 13 is, is very different from that. It says let him show by his good behavior, his deeds and the gentleness of wisdom. And so a discerning counselor or somebody whose life you can look at and whose life you can imitate. And this speaks to getting counsel without ever asking a question. You should be able to see people around you whose life demonstrates a pattern that maybe impacts the area or illustrates the area that you are looking for counsel.

Now I’m not saying, you know, that you can’t ask questions. But sometimes just looking at people around you without even asking a question, you’re getting counsel. And this is biblical. This is right out of James Three. Who among you is wise and understanding? So who would you go get counsel on wisdom from while you look at their good behavior their deeds and and in Hebrews 13 says considering their conduct, you imitate their faith and so much counsel. And and this speaks to by the way, the best counsel you’re going to get is in the church, in a healthy church where there are other people around you who are living it, who have lived it and then have the mileage on their on their odometer, if you will, That speaks to the the depth of discernment and their ability to give discerning counsel. And. And in that case, that depends on your discernment, not the discernment of the counselor but on your discernment of knowing who has a life that you can imitate. The Christian life is all about imitation and and so much counsel comes from that ability and that is a gift from God. Ephesians 4 says that God gives gifts to men and then it lays out the church and those in the church who are given to you and me from the Lord for many purposes. But one is that we can imitate them.

I liked how you brought up the the you. You said it tactfully. Mileage of their odometer, speaking to age. Probably it’s life experience. And there’s a a verse in Job 1212. Wisdom is with the aged and with long life comes understanding. And I think that’s important because it can be a temptation to want to seek counsel from our peers because we are all thinking through many of the same decisions. And so we’re kind of asking each other, OK, how did you think through this? And and maybe there’s a place for that, but we also all are. We don’t have that timeline and view of how this decision could impact the next 1020 thirty years, whereas someone else can say I I’ve seen where that decision leads over the long haul and give more perspective to someone younger on on how to make a decision. I liked how you said don’t just come to somebody and tell ask them what do I do. But what would you say would be the better types of questions you should ask when seeking counsel in a decision?

I I think you picked up on the first thing I would say is going to a counselor and asking what should I do? Puts the counselor in a really difficult position unless they know you really, really well. And so I think you should help the counselor help whoever that person is. And one of the ways to do that is to lay out a plan. Don’t come with a blank slate. So in other words, give it some thought before you see counsel. So going back, maybe I’m beating this horse to death, but going back to the original illustration of what school should I go to, that’s a really difficult question to answer. But if you go prepared to say here’s what I see are the strengths with school #1 and and here’s why I’m thinking about school #2. And in this context now you’re helping your counselor give you some good counsel. I think we should all be trained in our minds and in our hearts when we go for counsel that the first question we should ask and the first question we should be concerned about is what does the Bible say or does the Bible say? Are there principles in the Bible that affect this decision? If I’m making a decision, should I change jobs or not or change career paths? Does the Bible speak to anything that would affect that decision? And I I think too often we think going into this that we’ve explored the Bible and we know that the well, the Bible doesn’t say anything to this. So I’m just going to go get wisdom. I I think the first question should be to somebody whose counsel you’re seeking is do you know of anything in the Bible that might affect this decision and would you show me? And if they do, then the follow up question is what does it mean and how then should I live So I don’t foreclose that somebody might have some understanding of Scripture that that you don’t have. And if the Bible does not either speak directly to it or the principles don’t directly affect the decision, A good question to ask is what would you do? And you have to be careful with that. As somebody who gives counsel and gets counsel all the time, we have to be careful with that because we don’t want to roll that back into our life and say, well, Christi told me I should do this, So that’s what I’m going to do. If I’m getting counsel from Christi. That is incredibly unfair to Christi and it and it’s immature. You you have to own your decision and keep that in mind when you’re asking questions. And it might be good to let the person know from whom you’re seeking counsel that you understand that that you’re looking for them to weigh in on a decision. You’re not asking them to make the decision, and that frees that person up quite a bit.

Yeah. And you’re also you need to be humble in the process and and you brought out earlier, Chris, that someone may give you counsel that you don’t want to hear if they’re bringing up a a scripture passage that’s, you know, maybe it’s a a passage on finances because going to this school would be a financial burden for you in a in a long term situation or something of that nature. And you don’t want to hear that counsel. You need to be humbled to receive it and to prayerfully considerate. But for some of us who take the opinions of other people very seriously, maybe we have a a propensity to be a people pleaser. Maybe it’s the fear of man that’s causing a snare for us. But what is the proper weight that we should put on the council of others on our life decisions? I don’t know. I mean, you can’t put a percentage, but how do we factor that in as we’re thinking through a decision?

Yeah, I think the first thing to think about there is that that getting counsel is not making a decision. I think there should be a separation in our mind that when I go to someone for counsel, I’m not asking them to make the decision. I’m in the process of gathering information so that I can make a decision. A counselor is informing your conscience. They’re informing your knowledge. They’re informing your wisdom. But ultimately, you must own that decision. So the the way you should give counsel on your decision should go something like this. The Bible has the ultimate weight. Truth to the extent that the Bible speaks to the decision. No counselor, no person. Your conscience, your convictions, whatever else is weighing on that decision should never override that. And I think you know, we we say that that might seem very basic, but we can’t forget that after the explicit word of God that has the ultimate weight, your conscience and your convictions are next. And counselors are simply informing that conscience, informing your convictions and your knowledge and even your wisdom. And you know, just as an example, because I understand that might not be clear at first, but someone called me and said I’ve made this decision. My response to him was, well, I don’t want you to violate your conscience or your convictions. But no, don’t do that just yet. Let’s take some time to inform your convictions and or your conscience. And if at the end of that process you still want to do that, then I’ll accept that it’s your decision and for that person. We went through a process of talking to other people and doing some reading, taking some time. In that particular case, it was wait, hold on. We have to make sure that there’s no emotions involved here, or if they are, that they’re in their proper place. Emotions is part of life, but you want what you know and what you believe to dictate what you think and what you do and how you feel, not what you feel dictating. And I know I’ve said this before, but not you don’t want what you feel or the emotions of the moment to dictate how you’re thinking and what you do. And in that particular case, it was a a great result because after talking to a few people, spending some time in scripture, prayer, taking a few days to kind of put the decision aside, he came back with a different decision and I think a better decision and a better informed decision. And also though, you know, my concern was that I wasn’t persuading him one way or the other, but to make sure he understood you cannot violate your convictions and you should not violate your conscience. But getting those both of those elements informed by by counsel was helpful. So that’s kind of how counsel weighs on on decisions. And I I always tell people you’re the counseling process particularly in a a difficult situation starts long before that difficult decision comes. You want to establish counsel meaning friends, relationships before you need the counsel and the Bible says I’m thinking of Proverbs 27 verse 9. Oil and incense make the heart glad. So counsel from the soul is sweet to his friend. And so I think the weight of counselors goes to those who know you best. You know, that’s just one proverb and that we can pull that apart. Oil and incense make the heart glad, and that’s a parallelism with counsel from a good friend. Oil and incense were expensive. They were valuable, they were soothing, and they made the heart glad. And counsel from somebody who knows you really well, who knows the context, you know. And This is why counseling ministries are at a huge disadvantage. Somebody walks in off the street, They can tell you what they want you to know and get the counsel that they want. You can’t do that with a close friend with a close relationship. They know your history. They know who you are. They know your affections. They know the strengths and weaknesses of your walk with God. All of that plays into them. Now I have this decision to make or I have this this relationship situation. I need counsel. They can get to it very quickly. And by the way, just as a reminder, faithful are the wounds of a friend is a parallel to that. That counsel is sweet, but it may not taste real good at first. So the more a counselor has context, the more weight should be given to their counsel. It’s going to be better, more reliable, and probably more relevant to your life.

Yes. So so helpful, Chris. And you were speaking to helping your counselor earlier with the right kinds of questions, doing more of the legwork up front so that you’re presenting them with. These are the things I’m thinking through, you know? Am I missing anything here? But that also helps your counselor if they already know you. And so they know, like you said, your your propensities, your desires, your history. So it’s harder for you to hide things from them. Because it can be a temptation to want to manipulate counsel by only including some details but not everything. Because you are maybe looking for validation or a decision that you maybe know in the back of your mind is not wise and so you’re going to maybe leave out details but have integrity in the counseling process. Remember that God sees the whole situation. Lay it all out, the good, the bad and the ugly and ask for help discerning the best course. One thing that is challenging and maybe this would come up more in a situation with a relationship. Maybe someone is is dating and let’s just say hypothetically the family maybe isn’t all for the gentleman, but maybe people that this young lady is getting counsel from in her church. So you know, problem with a relationship. So what happens when you get conflicting counsel and maybe both parties know you well? How do you process through that, I think?

It’s good to go into that process thinking of yourself as the referee. You’re initiating a process of getting counsel. That’s your process. The result of that process is ultimately it is your decision. I know I’ve mentioned this earlier in our time together, but ultimately you bear the consequences. You, meaning the person getting the counsel. This applies to me also, but you bear the consequences, the responsibility and the reputation of that decision alone. It’s all yours. And so when you go to get counsel and it conflicts, now, you’re right where you were at the beginning of the process, and you never moved from where you are in that process, which is you are getting help informing your conscience or your knowledge or or your wisdom. But at the end, you can’t see that conflicting counsel as a failure. Hopefully you’ve informed yourself a little bit from both sides, if you will. And ultimately you still need to make that decision. And and I think in that place you have to find peace in the Providence of God that there is no bad decision. And I know you mentioned relationships in your question, Christi, I know this is very hard. This is hard truth. But there is no bad decision in God’s economy. God superintends all of that. That doesn’t mean you make crazy decisions. There’s two principles in decision making. One is there is no bad decisions. And then the second thing is you must make good decisions. And that process of you must make good decisions is you go to the word of God. You seek wisdom, you get counsel, but at the end of the day you make the decision. You have to blow the whistle, so to speak, as the referee and and make the call.

I think of a time. One of the most difficult decisions I made was a career decision. I was pursued by a headhunter. I got an unsolicited offer to go work for this company, downtown Los Angeles. I never, I never saw it coming. I was single at the time. I was really content in my current path, career path, and so there was really no bad decision to make here. But for whatever reason, I could not make peace with going to work for this company. And so I said no. And at the end of the day, I never regretted saying no. I always wondered, Gee, what would have happened had I done that. It wasn’t an emotional decision or a particularly spiritual decision, but it was a decision that just ate at me. And I think that process taught me something We shouldn’t make much of our decisions. The world isn’t revolving around my conflicted state. I think we’re called to be decisive, to make decisions, and to trust in the Providence of God. I know some people like I’m thinking of one man in particular, quite a bit older than me. He mentored me professionally, so he was not a believer, but he was involved in in my progress as a professional. He was somebody who could not make a decision. I mean, even picking a car to buy when his car died was a multiple week process that was just painful to watch and we all had to be involved in in the conflict in his mind about What Car to buy. It sounds silly, but that’s how some people live life and I just don’t think that’s how a mature believer lives. You get your counsel. If it’s conflicting, you have to make the call. Make the call. Move on. Trust in the Providence of God. He loves you. If it’s a decision, if you were supposed to go left and you chose right, trust me. If the Lord wants you to go left, he’ll make you go left.

What a a weight that lifts off our shoulders. And I just think of, you know, God being the wonderful counselor. Ultimately, you know he’ll give wisdom when we pray and ask for it, but also knowing that his Providence just continues to orchestrate and move along just perfectly fine with every decision that we make. And instead of maybe putting all of our mental energy into agonizing over a decision, I really appreciate how you keep bringing up and forming your conscience. And that should be a pursuit of just pour yourself into knowing the word of God, because decisions will become easier and easier. And maybe just make it a habit to read through proverbs regularly or, you know, have spiritual discussions with other people. But that is going to make this decisions probably faster for you because you know what God thinks and says about that.

So is is it ever wise to go against counsel? You know, we talk about conflicting counsel. So in that place you will be going against at least one side. But what if multiple people are saying you shouldn’t do something or go in a direction? How do you evaluate that?

Well, I think if you don’t have a piece with that, that council, I gave the example of that career decision. I remember early late teens in my life, everyone telling me I should go to seminary and I never had a piece that that was the direction I should go. And people very close to me were counseling me that way. So yes, I I think it is wise to go against counsel and and by the way, in hindsight I am very comfortable that I never did go to seminary and confident in the Lord’s calling on my life to take the path I’m on and how do I know that? Because it’s the path I’m on. I trust in the Providence of God. You cannot look back and say it was a bad decision. The path I’m on and the path that you’re on is the path that the Lord has directed every step of the way. So there there’s that. But also, if the council is foolish, if it’s contrary to the Bible, if the Council’s uninformed or misinformed or insufficiently informed, then it is wise to go against that kind of counsel. And I say that because in our audience, because I know it happens to me too, we get immersed in this world. I go back to Proverbs One starting in verse 20, Wisdom shouts in the street. It says, well, why does wisdom have to shout? Because we’re surrounded and we immerse ourselves in a culture that is under the control of the Prince of the power of the air, Satan himself. And there’s so much pseudo wisdom out there. If you listen to podcasts or you hear the the wisdom of the world. And sometimes we forget or we get immune or inoculated to what truth is in certain areas because we’re just hearing this stuff from the world. It’s foolish. It’s contrary to the Bible. It might be really winsome and and even comfortable, but it’s it’s uninformed, it’s not truth. That kind of counsel we should reject. And I know Christi, we’re talking about personal counsel, but I just wanted to go through that and say it’s very compelling sometimes to see how everyone else is living and say, well, maybe that’s the way I should go. And then all of This is why you should choose your counselors carefully and be careful that your first counselor is the word of God. And if you’re a believer, you have the Holy Spirit. And sometimes or all the time, your conscience is informed, hopefully by the Holy Spirit. And that is a gift to you and I for our safety, for our protection, and for our guidance. That is a gift from Jesus Christ. He said he would be sent giving sending us His Holy Spirit to guide us and to guard us and protect us. And sometimes we pick our counselors without the care that we should and that their counsel should be rejected. Be careful to fully inform your counselors. If you look back and you realize I didn’t really know that person and they don’t know me, their counsel was not fully informed, then it would be wise potentially to go against that council if it conflicts with others. So those are some examples of yes, it is wise to go against counsel sometimes.

1. Those are helpful points to keep in mind. You mentioned decision making a few times and I have to just plug the episode that you did on decision making on this podcast and I’ll link that in the show notes if the listeners want to go back and listen to that. You do touch on seeking counsel in that episode as well, but we cover a lot more territory there. So that would be a a good companion episode to this one. But sometimes there are decisions that it’s helpful to get a male perspective on. Maybe it’s a financial or job type of decision and we just feel like that is a maybe a world or a realm that men have a better insight into. So can you give the ladies that are listening some guidance for how the best way they should be seeking a male perspective? Any helpful tips there?

Well and and just to keep the theme of our time together, the Bible’s full of male perspective. Christ the apostles. But I I understand you’re saying men among us. I I will say this, there’s a few things in my opinion that require male perspective or a female perspective or any other perspective like that. To the extent you feel like there is a a needed male perspective on and issue of life there you have hopefully a dad and so many people reject a dad or a grandpa or whatever because of relationship issues. But your father knows you. He knows the context of your life and he is for you. Brothers, uncles, family in other words is a great way to get male perspective. If there’s a man in the church that you want some perspective from, I I I think a conversation can be one-on-one, that’s not a problem. But if it’s going to extend beyond a one time conversation and if you prepare well, it is a one time conversation. But if it requires that man getting more context of your life and and spending time to understand more deeply the issue that you’re talking about, and I always recommend having that conversation in the in the presence of another person to protect him and to protect you, especially if it’s going to be multiple conversations to get to an answer. And again, I would think that there’s very few issues where that might be required. And I think you should think through, do I really need a male perspective if it’s going to require that much disclosure of my personal life and and that much time together. You know, if it’s seeking wisdom, you get that wisdom. If it’s regarding a relationship, I would get counsel from someone who knows both of you. And that may be something where a young lady is interested in a young man and she wants to know from an older man who knows that young man what he knows about him. Kind of a reference check. By all means, go for that, Do that. And I don’t think there’s anything inappropriate with that. In fact, I get asked that a lot at my church. What do you know about this guy? And I love questions like that and being able to answer those. And that’s that’s good.

I was thinking that in particular of, you know, needing relationship help or wisdom and just men being able to understand men better and maybe give insight where women may be a little more blinded to potential red flags, but.

Yeah, I just think old. I just think older women probably have as good a read on on the male perspective as men do, and maybe even better sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, that’s true. Now we’ve talked about how do you seek out a discerning counselor, but all of us are in positions that we’re also giving counsel. People are coming to us, friends or family, and we want to be so careful because we know the weight of our words that that can have an impact on somebody’s life. So how would you encourage the listeners to become a good counselor to others?

I think you have to keep in mind that you need to own your council, but you don’t own the decision. It took me a long time to grasp this myself because you care for the people you’re talking to and you you feel the weight of the decision and you can’t lose sight of the fact that the person who’s talking to you owns that decision. They have to make the decision what I need to be concerned with. When I say own own my counsel or you need to own your counsel, you need to think very carefully about the counsel you’re giving and do so with great care. You want to be biblical when you can. That should be our first instinct every time. Is there a biblical passage that I can bring to bear that will help give Clarity? And I think that’s the other thing. One of the our roles as a counselor is to bring clarity to someone to help them sort through maybe emotions and maybe a bunch of other counsel and and maybe a lot of facts and circumstances that they’re laying out that are not central to what the real issue is. If we can help give them clarity to blow all of that Chapel way and get down to what is the real issue here. And that’s not easy sometimes, but we want to be biblical, bring clarity and distinguish between. The other thing I would just say that I’ve said already and I’m going to flip it, is to say we want to be really careful that we distinguish between what is my opinion versus thus saith the Lord.

You know, just an illustration of this. We want to be careful if we’re in a position of authority in their life. If we’re a Bible study leader, a small group leader, an employee of employer, a supervisor, something like that, you want to separate that authority from your counsel. And this is important for the counselor to remember that if, for example, I’m an elder in my church, and when I give somebody counsel, sometimes it takes on more weight than it should because in their mind, I’m an elder in the church. Therefore they have to do what I say. And so we want to be really careful of that as a counselor, that our job is not to get people to think like us or or to do what we would do. Our goal as a counselor is to point them to Christ, to the word of God, and to peace. That comes from knowing that they are in concert with that. I often think about Ephesians 4 that first that I think we probably all know, let no one wholesome word proceed from your mouth. And I’m assuming that’s going to be the case in a counseling situation. But here’s what our words should be like, and especially in the sensitivity of giving counsel, it says, but only such a word as is good for edification. In other words, building up according to the need of the moment so that it will give grace to those who hear. We want to be encouraging. We want to be relevant. We want to speak in accordance with the need of the moment and we want to give grace and I I think in a counseling setting, maybe more than many other situations, it’s really important that we let that guide our counsel and what we say and how we say it. And then I I go back to James 3 again, which I referenced early, where the definition of wisdom is shown by good behavior and and deeds. It goes on to say that wisdom from above, which is I’m hoping what people are coming to us for and what we’re giving them. Wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering without hypocrisy. There is a guideline for giving good counsel to others. That the counsel we are giving is in accordance with all of that, and it’s not tainted by our own hypocrisy. That our life is a pattern and an example of the counsel that we’re giving.

Yeah, so, so powerful and I appreciate how you brought out earlier. Also being a good listener, taking the time, sometimes it does take time to hear all the facts before you offer any input. This is just a question I thought of in the moment, but is there ever a place for offering counsel without it being sought? Or is that just a rule? Just never speak unless you are solicited for that advice.

Yeah, you know, I guess it depends on your definition of counsel. So the Bible makes clear if you see a brethren in sin, you go to them. And I suppose that could be viewed as counsel. Did you know, do you understand that what you’re doing is harming other people, for example? Yes. So I think that there are times when somebody needs to be corrected and they’re not going to ask for it. The principle I would say there is lead with questions. And I I go to just about any passage in the Bible where it talks about that kind of confrontation of sin, if you will, that you need to confirm facts. And I’ve learned this the hard way. I I’ve seen what I’ve seen and I think I know what I know and I go charging in and my motivations might even be right and good. But I’m wrong. Those situations could be avoided by leading with questions. This is what I saw. Did I see everything you know, Was there context to what I saw And then go to the council and the confrontation of the situation. So yes, there are cases other council encouragement when you see somebody that needs encouragement that in some sense is council that’s Ephesians 429 and and so I think you don’t wait to be invited. I think that’s a great opportunity to jump in and and to encourage to give feedback that maybe they weren’t asking for that maybe they can excel still more. And cases and situations like that, your counsel can be incredibly impactful in a way that you don’t even know. But that’s part of being in the in the body of Christ. And Hebrews 10 speaks of us stimulating one another to love and good deeds. And I think the counsel in that context may not be something that you wait until you’re asked for it.

So, so good to be reminded of that, To always be looking to build up and edify and encourage others. Well, thank you, Chris. They say that wisdom is borrowed. And I feel like we’ve borrowed a lot of your life wisdom and from just the experiences God has given you and your study of His word. So thank you for helping us build a framework to guide our seeking of counsel. And I know this is something that myself and the listeners will lean on as we seek to honor the Lord with the life He has given us to steward. We want to do that well and we are seeking wisdom so that we can So thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

It’s great to be with you. Thanks for letting me, Christi. It’s always a pleasure to be with you.