“Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” – Proverbs 15:22
FDR was a genius. During his presidency, he lifted the United States out of the Depression then guided the free world through WWII. Although he never lacked confidence, the real secret to his success came from how decisions were made behind the scenes. Instead of operating through a tight hierarchy, he scattered tasks among his aides, often appointing multiple advisers to the same issue. He intentionally gathered aides of opposing viewpoints and personalities and then played referee to the chaos.
Out of the dissonance of dissenting voices emerged…wisdom. FDR not only tolerated but sought out complexity. He chose to sit in the center and find people who would each grab a piece of him and pull him in a different direction. That’s a far cry from scrolling through your algorithm-catered news feed. And we wonder where wisdom has gone.
When God is about to create man, he says, “let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26). That’s God in counsel with himself. From eternity past, God has made every decision through the counsel of the Trinity. When Jesus gathers disciples, he brings together a political zealot (Simon) and a tax-collector who cozied with the government (Matthew). He brought poor fishermen (Peter and Andrew), as well as the wealthy (Joseph of Arimathea) and well educated (Luke the doctor).
Perhaps the most beautiful reality of God and Christianity is unity through diversity. That’s also how wisdom works. Notice this proverb doesn’t say “listen to your heart.” It doesn’t even say “find one mentor you trust.” It says with many advisers your plans will succeed. Tim Keller had a great aphorism about this. It was something like: If you read one source, you’ll be overconfident. If you read two sources, you’ll feel totally confused. It’s once you bring together five or six different voices on the same issue that you’ll start getting your bearing on true North.
That’s not easy. If you’re like me, you like to act fast and clean up the mess later. Finding even one voice outside your own instincts feels like a chore. But if you lean on trusted people, you’ll never walk away worse for the effort. Gathering advice is like creating a scatter plot. The more points you get, the more confident you’ll be in the line you draw.
There’s a limit to this as you bump into the law of diminishing returns. Once you’ve found your five or six trusted and diverse counselors, you will not improve your wisdom much by expanding to twenty. You’ll kill your energy and have trouble weighting the advice.
The core wisdom in this proverb is something the Bible hammers from every direction: humility brings blessing. We’re all inclined to grant inordinate trust to ourselves, and our culture doesn’t do us any favors. We live in a world where not only systems and institutions, but parents and trusted friends as well are to be discarded if you find them rubbing against the grain of your own desires. The Bible tells us to look to God and others to continually recalibrate our internal guidance.
