VOX POPULI, VOX DEI?

 Well hello!

How are you doing this fine day? Are you getting as tired of the daily rains as I am? 

Welcome to today's gist. 

I was recently reding 2 Samuel 14 and I learned something that I want to share, but let's get a little back story. David's son Amnon (rumoured to be his favorite at the time) raped his half-sister Tamar; in retaliation, Tamar's "complete" brother Absalom killed Amnon and ran away, afraid of what his father, David, would do to him. Now Chapter 14 opens with Joab (remember him? That David loyalist we talked about a couple of weeks ago; go check "Because of Abner" on the blog) went to a wise woman and asked her to speak to David. The wise woman goes, paints a scenario similar to the one involving David's children and asked for David's advice. Like with David and Nathan over Uriah's death, David's answer "koba-d" him, and listening to the wise woman's advice, he sends for Absalom. And that is where I have a problem, the Bible doesn't say David listened to God's instructions or advice from any of the Prophets, he listened to the "WISE" woman's advice. Now, David is a man who before going to battle, even when he had just cause like when the Amalekites carted the property and wives of David and his men from Ziklag, would make sure he received clear instructions from God to proceed; but when it came to a decision as crucial as letting a murderer back into his kingdom and home, he decided to follow the advice of a wise woman.  And the question I asked myself was "where did God go that he didn't ask Him?" Of course, God didn't go anywhere, David just decided that this time around, he should look to someone else. When you go on to read the next two Chapters of 2 Samuel, you'd see that Absalom came back and, first burnt Joab's field because he asked for Joab and Joab didn't come. As I was saying "e good for you, shey na you say make David bring am come back", Absalom plotted and overthrew his father from the throne. 

As I think of the extreme madness that followed, I can't help but wonder, "won't things have been different if David had consulted with God before sending for Absalom?" And then I ask myself "how many times do I listen to the wisdom of people and act on them without asking God if this 'wise' course of action is the one He'd have me take?" And for all the times I've decided to follow human wisdom alone, I've noticed that I always end up in trouble.

And that's what I wanted to share with us today: the fact that it is the wise course of action does not mean it is the "God course of action." The advantage of following God's own course of action over human's is this: God already knows what is ahead so He alone knows the best way to deal with it, when we follow His lead and way, we can be sure that we will definitely end up well. But as much as we can try as humans to calculate the possible outcome of situations, we only speculate, we have no way of knowing with certainty that our calculations will be correct, but God does.

I'm not saying making plans and having a mapped out course of action is bad, I'll never say that. All I'm saying is this: make sure your plans come after you have consulted with God, only He can truly give you the plan that will be the best for you. 

Today's title means "the voice of the people is the voice of God" (shout-out to ShuGz and all them People's Chambers folks) but I say, the voice of God is the voice of God! Do not let yourself be carried away by the plenty wise and well thought-out advice people may give you, that you forget to listen to God's own instructions, you'll only be setting yourself for failure. 

Pheeew! It's a really long read but I hope that you sha get the gist of what I'm saying. Last last, let's all just make sure to consult with God and seek His approval for whatever it is we want to do. 

I pray this month is filled with God's abundance for us and that we achieve feats! 

See you next week. 

Love, 

Achenyo.