Ignoring Wise Counsel

By Michael K. Farrar, O.D.

© Godly Boundaries

 

Once when I was about 11 or 12 years old my dad and I went over to the coast to collect seashells and sea life. This wasn’t just a fun trip, my dad was taking a class on oceanography for his teaching degree and had to collect a certain amount of shells and sea life, identify I and turn it into a professor who lived near the coast.

 

As we traveled we talked about what types of shells we might find and which beaches might be best to go to. We were anxious to get to work, but had to check in at the home of the professor. The professor told us several places that would be good to find certain types of shells, animals and seaweed. We asked her where the best place to camp was and she said that many people camped right on the beach, but she advised us that it would be safer in a sate campground. We said good bye and left, ready, to begin our quest.

 

We spent most of the day on the beach, poking around in tide pools and scavenging what we could from off the beach. We found lots of shells and sea animals. We even found some fossil sand dollars, oysters and shells.

As the sun began to go down I asked my dad if we needed to find a place to spend the night and he said that he had decided that we would just pull our Volkswagen bus over on the beach and camp out there. I mentioned that the professor had recommended a state park but he felt we would be fine on the beach. We made camp, made our beds in the floor of the Volkswagen and fell into a much-needed sleep.

 

“YOU *?!!!?!?!?*()&% NO GOOD @#$*%&(!@!!!. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING OUT HERE.

YOU #&@@!#!!!???, STUPID, #@!!??*&!??@.”

 

I woke up startled and saw someone looking in the window of the van. He seemed to be very angry and was cussing in paragraphs. He was saying something about a prize bull that had gotten loose and couldn’t be found or had been shot. He stated that we had better get out of there or we were in trouble. Of course he used some different words and expressions, but that was about all I could gather from what he was saying. He left, and about that time, my dad woke up. I filled my dad in on what the man had said. My dad said to go back to sleep and if they came back to just stay down.

 

A few minutes later I heard a pickup truck coming down near where we were parked. All of a sudden, my dad jumped up off the van floor, threw open the doors to the Volkswagen Bus and began walking quickly out onto the beach toward the pickup which was pulling up. He raised his hand up in the air and then I heard BANG! BANG! BANG! Flames shot out of the muzzle of the automatic pistol that he had in his hand. The pickup engine roared and sand flew everywhere in the air as the tires spun for traction. The men in the truck were desperately trying to get out of there fast. The pickup disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust in the dim moonlight.

My dad came back to the truck. He seemed to be contemplating something. He put the gun under a pillow and then broke the silence. “I think we might go somewhere else, just in case those men come back with their own guns.”

 

We broke camp and drove near the home of the professor and slept the rest of the night in the safety of her property.

 

I’m not sure if my dad had done the right thing, firing the gun at the men who were harassing us. Possibly we should have taken the professor’s advice in the beginning. I think as Christians we often don’t seek out wise counsel. Sometimes when we do, we don’t listen to it. Often even when we pray, do we pray for God to condone what we have already decided, or do we truly want to know what God’s counsel would be?

 

Proverbs 24:6

“In a multitude of counselors there is safety.”