More Than One Voice

A man convinced he can think his way out of this alone is usually the man most trapped in it. The proverb speaks to that directly. Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety. The word abundance is striking. It does not say one trusted voice is enough, though one is far better than none. It points to a fuller kind of safety that comes when a man opens his life to several honest people, each seeing a different angle, each able to catch what the others miss.

Lust thrives on the private counsel of your own mind, which is compromised on exactly this subject and will always argue for what it craves. Your own reasoning at eleven at night is not a reliable guide. Other voices are. A leader who has walked this road, a brother a few steps ahead, a wife who prays for you, the steady counsel of Scripture read in the morning, these together form a kind of guardrail your own thoughts cannot provide.

If you have kept your circle of counsel small, widen it. Ask God this week to surround you with wise men, and to give you the humility to actually listen.