For His Counsel: by Andrew Murray

 

They soon forgot His works; they waited not for His counsel.
—Psalm 106:13

This refers to God’s people in the wilderness. He had redeemed them and was prepared to supply their every need. But, when the time of need came, “they waited not for His counsel.” They did not think that the almighty God was their Leader and Provider. They did not ask what His plans might be. They simply thought the thoughts of their own hearts, and provoked God by their unbelief.

How this has been the sin of God’s people in all ages! In the land of Canaan, in the days of Joshua, the only three failures of which we read were owing to this one sin. In going up against Ai, in making a covenant with the Gibeonites, in settling down without going up to possess the whole land, “they waited not for His counsel.” And so, even the advanced believer is in danger from this most subtle of temptations: taking God’s Word, thinking his own thoughts of it, and not waiting for His counsel. Let us especially regard it not only as a danger to which the individual is exposed, but as one against which God’s people, in their collective capacity, need to be on their guard.

Our whole relationship to God is ruled in this, that His will is to be done in us and by us. He has promised to make known His will to us by His Spirit. Our position is to be waiting for His counsel as the only guide of our thoughts and actions. In our church worship, in our meetings, in our gatherings as committees or helpers in any part of the work for God, our first object must always be to ascertain the mind of God. God always works according to the counsel of His will. The more that counsel of His will is sought, found and honored, the more surely will God do His work for us and through us.

The great danger is that in our consciousness of having our Bible, in our past experience of God’s leading, in our sound creed and our honest wish to do God’s will, we trust in these and do not realize that with every step we need and may have a heavenly guidance. There may be elements of God’s will, application of God’s Word, experience of the leading of God, manifestations of the power of His Spirit, of which we know nothing as yet. God is willing to open up these to souls who are willing, in patience, to wait for Him to make it known.