In Isaiah 9:6 it says, "For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Might God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." This is a prophecy about the coming of Jesus that takes place in the New Testament. In this passage it lists 4 titles that Jesus has:
Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God. Everlasting Father. Prince of Peace.
Have you guys ever thought about those titles? This morning, during staff meeting, we did a little personal digging on this verse. So, I decided to share with you all today some of my thoughts and encourage you to do the same type of digging. The starting question is: Which of these titles do you relate to the most? Or which do you need the most in your life right now? Which one do you connect with the most or the deepest? Pray about it, think about it, read about it, and pick one. The choice will likely be pretty obvious. You could also spend some time studying each, think of it as a kind of devotional. We had about 20 minutes for the excerise, but feel free to take as much time as you want. We did this activity creatively, each of us had a sheet of white paper, a bunch of markers, crayons, magazines, glue, etc, but feel free to do this however you want.
I thought it would be fun to share with you guys what I chose and my process. I chose Wonderful Counselor. It was the first one that jumped out at me. I had this whole idea of what was going to happen during my time studying this word, but God totally surprised me. I wrote the words WONDERFUL COUNSELOR in big letters across the page. I was prepared to start writing about how I would love to be a couselor and how God is the ultimate example for this, and then to pray about direction regarding this, but... instead, I just thought, look it up. Define it. I don't know why, but I thought it was an interesting and unexpected thing, so I did.
WONDERFUL- (wuhn-der-fuhl): Adjective- Excellent; great; marvelous; of a sort that causes wonder; amazing; astonishing.
WONDER- (wuhn-der): Verb- to think or speculate curiously; to be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe; marvel; to be curious about.
CURIOUS- (kyoo r-ee-uh-s): Adjective- Eager to learn or know; inquisitive
COUNSELOR- (koun- suh-ler): Noun- a person who counsels; adviser.
COUNSEL- (koun-suh l): Noun- Advice; opinion or instruction given in directing the judgement or conduct of another; deliberate purpose, plan, and design.
So, I looked at all of these and realized something. God is wonderful. This means that He is curious about us. He wants to know about us, our lives, our decisions, our struggles, our successes, our failures, what we see each of these as, how we feel about them, everything. He is curious about us. He wants to know about us. It isn't even just that He wants to know about us, but He is eager to know about us. He wants to be counsel us, He wants to know us and help us. He is not going to leave us without direction because He cares about us. Why would he be so curious about us if he didn't care about us? He cares. He is curious. He counsels.
So, my Christmas encouragement to you is the God is curious about you. He cares deeply about you because He is Wonderful Counselor. I'd love to hear what your thoughts about this were. I'd also love to hear what title means the most to you right now or which one has the deepest impact on you right now. This is a fun reminder of what Christmas is actually about, and it might inspire you a little bit during this season.