Counseling ourselves

Reading in Moses again today - the Pearl of Great Price is a book I've never been through, and it's a bit of an adventure. I find it to contain the readable story form that the Book of Mormon takes, but the precision of language that the Doctrine and Covenants takes.

I got stuck on the verse where I left off last time. Verse 43 in chapter 6 has a phrase that hits me. "...why council ye yourselves, and deny the God of heaven?"

I'll be delivering a lesson on Sunday about Crisis of faith, and this kind of thing is exactly what we do. We sit around in a circle of people who think they know what they're talking about, but don't. Then we talk ourselves into things that someone convinces us of and choose that belief. Then we find out later it's not true, and blame God. Why? He was never involved. We never involved him. We involved a bunch of pretenders, people who thought they were knowledgeable, but never requested God's advice, never placed our trust in him, never worked to open a pipeline and keep it open, none of the above. We trusted our brains. We trusted the other people in the room. We trusted someone's ability to speak well. We trusted someone because lots of other people trust him. We trust in whatever, but not the Lord.

I'm thinking scenarios might be in order. Let's say I see someone on TV - a preacher, and he's healing people right and left. Does that mean I should trust him? If I trust that the healing proves that he's a man of God, then I'm down the road of trusting the TV. If I trust that my Heavenly Father will guide me toward truth, then I'm down the road being guided by my Father.  If I go to church, and I am reassured by my Father that my bishop is his chosen servant and leader for me, then I know who I can rely on. By contrast, if I reject Christ's chosen leaders because I'm not open to being told whether or not they are His, then I've clearly shown that I'm not open to any guidance or assistance from his servants on earth - then I'm trusting my own brain. That doesn't get us too far. It could be compared to swimming in a huge mud pit with blinder goggles.

One thing is certain I believe: trusting anyone but the Lord leads pretty much to one place: being lost. I think there are 1000 ways to be lost, but in the end, I think we know it.

By contrast, the bright light and warmth associated with placing our lives and will into God's hands is a wonderful way to live. Yes, we do have to give up the dark to experience the light, but the more dark we give up to the Lord, the more bright we have in our lives. More certainty, more calm, more warmth, more knowing, more direction, more gifts, more love. Some would say that this is a very restrictive way to live - true from the viewpoint of darkness - but the freedom that the light provides is more than worth it.

May we seek counsel from the Lord. May he be our primary source of guidance. We can be open to the assistance from others, but Christ and He alone is our foundation. Not our friends, not our family, not our brains, not the charismatic guy - Christ is our foundation. With that foundation, we feel no need to counsel ourselves. Why ascend the mountain to speak to the guru, and after arriving at the peak, query the gopher sitting off to the side?

Finally, to seek counsel from anyone other than Christ or his designated and authorized representatives is to deny Christ. Let us be loathe to do so. And when we do - when Christ is our direction and foundation - there is no crisis that we can't handle.