MIND WHOSE COUNSEL YOU FOLLOW
“…a person who listens to advice is wise” – Proverbs 12:15
It is wise to listen to advice. It is also wise to ensure that you are not misled while trying to seek advice.
Advice or counsel is like medicine, it gives the expected result when properly applied but when misapplied, it is essentially of no use and may become counterproductive.
Usually, advice is sought when one needs to be taught, guided or encouraged, when one seeks hope, answers or solution. Counsel can be a source of strength and encouragement. It can also be a means of finding an answer or a solution.
As a matter of fact, a good counsel is invaluable: It can inspire, educate, propel and motivate. A wise counsel can guarantee success and safety.
Ideas may be perfected with a good piece of advice. Correspondingly, plans may fail without wise counsel.With good counsel, battles are fought and wars won. Good counsel inspires great attainments in career and aspirations. In business, it is key to success. Even a nation can fall through a lack of guidance.
Counsel helps one to discover an alternative route, a different approach, a new perspective, a new innovation, a new way, etc. Counsel can even be divinely inspired with incredible benefits.
Counsel could be based on encyclopaedic knowledge, sound education, divine inspiration, wide experience, wisdom, competence and excellence. Although some counsel show a clear lack of knowledge, education, experience, wisdom and competence. When counsel is lacking in knowledge, experience, education, wisdom, skill or competence, it is likely to be weak or misleading and can even be an outrght blunder. Another type of misleading counsel is the type referred to in the scripture as the counsel of the ungodly which is typically lacking in godly character and attributes. It is usually inspired by envy, jealousy, hate or other ungodly attributes hence its name: “counsel of the ungodly.” Ungodly counsel is oftentimes than not, a reflection of the nature and character of the giver of the counsel who without a fail is predictably profane. The next one is similar to the counsel of the ungodly – this is the type of counsel that is not based on love or that is lacking in love. Counsel that is not love – based is of essence misleading. It may be deliberately deployed to hurt the one it is being offered to. In some cases, the one providing the counsel may deliberately arm the recipient with it to hurt a third party. This can also be done unconsciously in a situation where the one providing the counsel has no ulterior motive but has nothing better to offer. Of course, the saying that one cannot offer what he does not have, remains true. This is the reason we should choose whose counsel we follow.
Counsel can be witty or dumb, thoughtful or mindless, love motivated or hate – driven. It can be right or wrong, wise or unwise, informed or uninformed, godly or ungodly, a good guide or a misleading one. It could be inspiring or inciting, it could be a solution or a problem. It can be a pathway or a dead end. It can sow dischord instead of love, it can rend rather than mend. it can promote peace or breed violence, it can be a problem instead of a solution. It all depends on who is giving the advice.
Counsel is very critical in marriage where it could be used as a source of strength and encouragement for the partners who oftentimes fail to encourage one another, preferring instead to follow wrong advice to their detriment.
Written by:
Christian Enebe
(Educator/Mentor)
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