Psalm 16:7   
Who to consult?
    “I will praise the Lord who counsels me.”  Another simple statement of fact, but how did the Lord counsel David? A brief survey of the Books of Samuel reveal a man who was often making requests to God and receiving direct commands.  This young man who, from the age of 30, ruled Israel and Judah for 40 years, had a direct line to the Lord.  He was able to make astonishing military and political decisions because the Lord told him exactly what to do.  Hence the distressed heart cry, found in some Psalms, when the Lord seems distant and David finds himself alone and rudderless. It is possible to draw close to the living God and to know, by His Spirit, what He asks of us and to hear His voice of guidance and command.  This was so true of the Lord Jesus, of course, but notice that even He spent many early morning hours of contemplation, prayer and resting in the presence of the Father. The better we know someone, the more likely we are to know their will and their ways! This communing with our heavenly Father is a beautiful and precious thing and gives us such confidence in the face of the daily challenges of life. We know what to do and what to say! “I will praise the Lord who counsels me!”
There are other sources of guidance, of course. We have the Scriptures but then they should be an integral part of our meditation and the means by which God speaks to us.  We have to remember that David would have known the first 5 books of the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus, as His teaching shows, knew all of the Torah and the Prophets and the Writings. (The Hebrew Scriptures.) There were prophets in David’s day, men and women who spent time alone and together with God and who discerned His voice and at times David listened to their counsel.  He also consulted wise men who he trusted, but time and time again he proved that his main source of counsel was the Lord Himself. Does He counsel you?

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