Counsel is just that, it's advice. You're still responsible. I'm not talking about counsel that controls you, that's not counsel at all, that's ungodly. So here's another thing you could ask yourself, even just two or three of these if you've got them lined up, you'll probably get the right decision. How does this, or what is the impact of your desire, or plan, upon others? Now that's an important one. What is the impact of your plan or desire on others? So if you're planning that I've got a great dream, I'll go and climb Mount Everest - how much is that going to cost your whole family, you doing that? Have you thought about the impact of that desire? Now have another think. If it's going to have all that impact, really, should you be doing that? In other words, we're not to live our life for ourselves. We're called to liberty and freedom, but not to use it as an occasion in the flesh, but by love serve one another, so when you have all these desires, and you're fulfilling all these desires, and doing your own thing, and the family finances are running down while you just go out and do your thing, that is ungodly. It's self-centred, it's selfish, and it won't build good relationships. It's not very wise either. Getting the idea?
And of course, you could pray and ask God to tell you. Sometimes He does, and sometimes He doesn't. Most of the time, He'll just give you peace in His heart, but sometimes He'll give you a rhema, a quickened word, and you'll know it's exactly what I'm called to do. Listen to this. There has not been a single major decision I've made in my life - now you don't make many major decisions in your life. There's never been a single major decision I've made since I've come to Christ, where I did not get a rhema from God. If it was big enough to be a major decision, I always figured I'm not smart enough to see the consequences, I need God to speak to me. So that's where, at the core there's this thing, where I'm here to fulfil God's purpose, but I've got to participate wholeheartedly in it. I've got my part to do, and see many Christians are waiting for God to tell them what to do, or they think God's telling them what to do, and it's really their own thing, but there's a balance of human responsibility, and I've given you some what I call practical steps of how you discover what God wants you to do, a whole range of very simple things.
I'm going to give you a few things, and I want to just throw this out, because this will set you off course every time, and I won't develop them. I'd like to, but I won't develop them. Here's the first one. These are hindrances to discovering what God's called you to do, or wants you to do. Number one is, you ask God, but you have an idol in your heart. You ask God for direction, but you've already got your intention made up. This is what makes it difficult when you're asking God about a marriage partner, because often you've already got your own idea made up, and you're not going to listen anyway, so all you want is - and here's what the Bible says in Ezekiel. God's speaking and He says, now they have idols in their heart, so this is what He says, so when they come to me asking for direction, what they will hear is the idol in their heart. If you come to God looking for direction, and you've already got a mindset, your mind made up, you've already got something you've determined to do, He is not fooled one bit. You're not coming to ask Him for direction, you're coming already with your mind made up, or something in your heart you want to do, and you never hear the will of God in that, or rarely. What happens instead is, you hear what you want to hear. You hear the voice of your own idol.
There's a great story in the Bible and you can look it up in 1 Kings 22 of King Ahab. King Ahab wanted to go down to battle, and so Jehoshaphat came with him, and they got together, two kings sat in their thrones and Jehoshaphat said, shouldn't we get a word from the Lord? So Ahab brought all the prophets together, and the prophets all said oh, and they did these great prophetic actions, and they got these bullhorns, and they woo, you're going to go there, and you'll beat up the Syrians, and you'll knock them all down, and you'll smite them. You'll come home victorious, and they all did the same things see - king's very happy. But then the king said well listen, what about a word from the Lord? Is there anyone else who's a true prophet of the Lord? So they bring out Micaiah, and before Micaiah comes on, the man says to him listen, all the prophets are saying man, the king's going to have a victory. He should go down to the battle - so make sure you bring the same word. Now notice this - the king had already made up his mind what he wanted to do, so when the prophet came, you know what? The first word he heard from the prophet, according to the idol in his heart. The prophet said go down, you'll succeed. How about that?