Day 3 - Jacob 4:10 "Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works."
"To counsel means to give advice. Often when we pray we seek more to advise the Lord in what we think He should do for us or others ("Dear Lord, please bless so-and-so that such-and-such will happen"), than to listen for His counsel or advice. Write in the form of a question something that has been troubling you, addressing it to the Lord. Then listen and record the answer you receive."
Well, I guess the Lord doesn't think we're "Dear Abby" huh? How good of a track record do I really have in regards to the sum total of all my failed observations, understandings, 20-20 hindsight, etc? And we all tell ourselves stories, lot of stories about the reality around us. Why someone else does what they do, what their motives are, what their true intent is. We predict outcomes that never happen and and feel slighted when no slight actually exists. And we make mountains out of molehills. Not all the time, of course, but sometimes we do. The Lord looketh on the heart and the Lord sees the whole picture. AND he loves each of us and our individual family members far more than we are capable of loving them. And he has loved us for a much longer time. This is definately a trust issue - this learning how to communicate with the Lord. But the author is not suggesting we shouldn't cousel WITH the Lord, but rather is suggesting we check the tendency to dictate TO the Lord. Of course we can think things through, share our opinions and observations with the Lord and ask for enlightenment and inspirations to handle challenges and tasks. I believe the main point here is when we go to the Lord with an open mind, we are able to feel and understand the Spirit more. We are able to see addtional paths, better options...
I also think that we need to be willing to LISTEN to His counsels. Sometimes, we know exactly what we think we need. We want the Lord to do "A" or even "B" and are totally shocked when He does something completely different! (Especially if it does not seem to be what we wanted). I will never forget how I had to learn that the Lord give EVERYONE their free agency. He doesn't take that away from them even when MY free agency wants Him too. That was a lesson I hope I learned well enough to never need to repeat. I think we need to have an open mind, but we also need to be willing to trush Him that, even if it looks bad now, it will somehow be just what we need.
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