The Eleventh Opinion

Denise asked the eleventh one on a Wednesday and knew, while the woman was still talking, that it was not going to help either.

She has a mental list. Her sister, twice. A woman at church whose judgement she rates highly. A former colleague she had not spoken to in three years and rang specifically about this, which she is faintly embarrassed about. Her sister's husband, who was surprisingly good. A man from her old job. Her neighbor, in the front garden, at some length. And four others.

Eleven people, over about nine months, about the same decision.

And here is the thing she noticed on the Wednesday, standing in a car park afterwards, that she has not been able to put down since.

They have not disagreed with each other.

That is the part. If they had all said different things she could tell herself she was still gathering. But nine of the eleven have said essentially the same thing, in different words, some of them gently and one of them not gently at all. Two were genuinely undecided and said so honestly.

There is no contradiction to resolve. There has not been for months.

So she is not gathering information. She has known that at some level since about the sixth conversation, and she has kept going anyway, and she has started to wonder what she is actually doing when she rings somebody about it.

She is fifty-two.

You may know that car park.

Maybe you have a list too. Maybe yours is six, or twenty. And maybe, if you are honest, the last several have not been telling you anything new.

What the asking is for now

Let me say the kind thing first, because there is an unkind reading of this available and it is not the true one.

You are not weak. You are not incapable of thinking for yourself. Every one of those eleven conversations was a reasonable thing to do at the time, and asking people who know you is exactly what a sensible person does, and Proverbs is fairly enthusiastic about counselors.

But there is a difference between seeking counsel and seeking company.

Somewhere around the sixth conversation the function changed. You stopped needing information and started needing somebody in the room with the weight, because carrying a decision on your own for nine months is genuinely lonely and that loneliness is real and it has to go somewhere.

That is not a failure. It is a need, and it is a legitimate one, and it has been showing up dressed as research because research is a respectable way to ask somebody to sit with you.

And you are not looking at weakness when you look at those eleven calls. The written word says bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ, and it treats carrying together as the design rather than as a concession, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my paragraph who makes that land in a woman in a car park.

And you are allowed to want somebody with you in it. The word says two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor, and the Spirit bears witness with your spirit rather than requiring you to be self-sufficient about this.

The verb in Proverbs

There is a sentence about deciding that is short and does not flatter anybody, and it is worth having.

A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.Proverbs 16:9

Two clauses, two subjects, and both of them are doing something.

The man devises. That is his part and it is not disparaged; devising is planning, weighing, laying it out, and the verse does not say to stop.

And the LORD directs the steps. Not the plan. The steps. The actual putting down of a foot, which happens later and elsewhere and is not the same activity as devising at all.

Which means the thing you have been trying to get from eleven people is not available from any of them, because it is not in the devising column. You have been asking human beings to supply the second clause.

And the directing of your steps is not held by any of the eleven. The word splits the devising from the directing and puts them in different hands, and the Spirit is the one who makes that a relief rather than an isolation.

And nothing about you is under review for the nine months. The word says there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, and the Spirit supplies that to a woman who is faintly embarrassed about a phone call.

What the twelfth person would have to say

Here is a question worth sitting with tonight, and it is the only piece of work in this article.

What would the twelfth person have to say for this to be over?

If the answer is nothing they could say would end it, then the asking is not for information and you already know that, and one more call will cost you another fortnight and a little more of your own confidence.

If the answer is a specific sentence, then notice that you already know what it is, which means you have already had the thought, which means it did not come from any of them.

And you have the wisdom you have been trying to borrow. The word says if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and it puts the source outside the eleven entirely, and the Spirit is the one who supplies it rather than a twelfth phone call.