Proverbs 15:22 ESV
Without counsel plans fail,but with many advisers they succeed.
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+15%3A22&version=ESV]
Men throughout history have recognized the value of wise council. “These were hard times, heartbreaking for the prince of the Shieldings, and powerful counselors… would lend advice,” states the poem Beowulf (1). As much as we like to think that we can do-it-ourselves, an essential part of maturity is recognizing that we often need help. Other people may not know better, but they do know different, and the fresh perspective may find an error we never perceived, a possibility we did not imagine.
We can make plans by ourselves. Sometimes these plans succeed- especially the simple ones, like ‘I’m going to butter this bread’ or ‘I’m going to drink some water out of this glass.’ The big plans, though, the important ones, the complicated ones, the plans where other people and big problems and long term effects are involved… those plans are much more dangerous. Of course, it’s not impossible that a single person’s plan could succeed; the proverb today is, like many proverbs, observing a pattern, a pattern not without the occasional outlier. On the whole, though, a plan made with help from other people has a better chance than one made by oneself (provided the counselors are not themselves fools). Why?
Simply put, we humans are limited, biased, and fallible. We’re limited in our understanding of the world. This is just a fact of life. I only know so much; you only know so much; King Solomon only knew so much. We learn as we grow, but we don’t learn everything. I may have expertise in writing certain types of fiction and nonfiction, but that won’t help when the problem is how to attach a wheel to a car safely (without safety concerns: lots of duct tape. Don’t try it).
We’re biased. How? By what? Well, each of us has a history and a temperament. Our emotions, our affections, our memories, they are all powerful forces which sway our judgement even when watched. It can be emotion: anger turning us from a wise course, fear from a workable plan, kindness from tough love (Heb. 12:5-11). Our affections may turn us, lead us to choose unqualified candidates because they flatter us, because they remind us of ourselves, or to harm our relationships because of a disordered affection for another (a rather extreme example being adultery- but a man who neglects his family for his job (without being forced by necessity) is likewise indulging an affection immorally). Finally, and bound up with all these, our memories bias us. The most straightforward instance of this is with trauma, even PTSD, which will affect our thinking, but positive associations too can influence our planning.
We’re fallible: we sin. Our plans are mangled not just because we’re limited and biased but because they are warped by our inherent tendency and desire to turn against God and His providence. Yet the world is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof (Ps. 24:1), and so no plan which dishonors Him will truly succeed (Ps. 1:6, 112:10). Our individual planning ability is deeply flawed- and, admittedly, no human counselor escapes these drawbacks.
What’s the point of adding more people, if they all have the same problems? Well, they don’t precisely have the same problems. All of us have the same general problems- limits, biases, and sin- but none of us have quite the same limits, biases, or sins. The point of other counselors, at the worst, is to cover each other’s weaknesses so that the plan is seen more completely. By analyzing it from multiple perspectives with different sets of limits and biases, we can find and get out in the open the bits that any one perspective would have missed. Of course, this all relies on actually listening to the counselors, so remember that having help doesn’t mean squat if we don’t use it.
The second part of seeking counsel is that sometimes we aren’t the wisest person in the room (or available to be brought to the room). In God’s grace, we can find counselors who provide better counsel than we ourselves could, not only to our plan’s benefit but for our own good.
What should we look for in counselors?
This is in itself a topic capable of multiple volumes. It can be summarized, unhelpfully, in one sentence: Find men of integrity, wisdom, and virtue. We can, however, briefly expand on this. First, we should avoid sycophants and flatterers, avoid hypocrites (except as knowledge-consultants; here’s another topic, honestly), avoid those who seek problems without desiring solutions (they may see real problems, but they are nevertheless scoffers (Ps. 1:1)), avoid fools in general. Second, we should seek men (I use the term without respect for gender) who have a thorough respect for God, who are thoughtful without being vacuous, men of substance. We should seek consistency and integrity, people who display the same worthiness and wisdom across time and in different environments. Honesty, integrity, willingness to criticize and be criticized, a history of applied wisdom or successful skill, and the recommendation of those you already trust are also desirable. For further thought, I recommend the qualifications for elders given in Titus 1:5-9.
In the end, though, all men are sinners; all men will come short. Remember that quote from Beowulf? Here’s a bit of what the poem has to say about those counselors: “Sometimes at heathen shrines they… swore oaths that the killer of souls might come to their aid and save the people…. Deep in their hearts, they remembered hell.” We have only one perfect Counselor (Is. 9:6). God is our counselor, our guide, our deliverer from our own sin and failure. He speaks to us in His word, the Bible, giving us clear and steady aid in all troubles of the soul (2 Timothy 3:16-17). He speaks to us too through His Spirit, coming to us and giving us light. It is for us that Christ intercedes in heaven, we that believe in Him by His grace. Let us turn to Him, then, as our first counselor; let us run to Him as our final counselor when all others fail, who knows us and all we face as we could never know, who loves us beyond our comprehension (John 3:5; 1 John 3:1). Then may we, like Beowulf’s unnamed poet, say, “Blessed he who after death can approach the Lord and find friendship in the Father’s embrace.”
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
1 – Beowulf. Trans. Seamus Heaney, W.W. Norton & Company, 2000.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
