So you’re driving home from work… It’s been a rough day. Your boss was short with you, you made mistakes, you feel a little under-appreciated… What do you do?

You have a close friend who is doing things and making mistakes, but you’re not sure whether to confront them… whether it’s your place to say something… What do you do?

Unfortunately I often pull out my phone and scroll through my contacts, wondering who I can call to get some encouragement, support, and just someone to listen. I don’t want this to come across as condemning community and close relationships with people for support. However, should that really be our first reaction?

I have spent a lot of time recently trying to step back and to objectively look at my actions, my thoughts, and my emotions. The hope is to uncover areas in my life that can be improved, worked on, etc. Often times I fail to turn first to God, and then to others. It’s something I am working on. I have always known in my head that we are to rely on Christ, but turning that into our first reaction takes practice and hard work.

If I can boil down what I am trying to say into a few short lines, it would be this. We often seek out Godly counsel when we have questions, concerns, fears, and uncertainties. And although this isn’t necessarily wrong, I do believe that it’s dangerous and inappropriate for this to be our first reaction. Any Godly man or woman whose counsel we trust will speak into our situation from scripture. If that is so, then why not first go to scripture ourselves? The answers are in there, and once you have poured through scripture, and have spent time on your knees in worship and prayer, I believe it is appropriate to go to someone you trust and confide in them what’s going on in your heart, and how you have sought Christ fully (scripture, prayer, praise/worship and now community).

It’s not going to be easy at first, especially if you don’t feel like you have a solid familiarity with scripture and where to find things within it. Here are a few tips to help you.

Many bibles have a concordance in the back. What are your wrestling with? Fear? Uncertainty? Anger? Think about words that may relate to these issues and look them up in the concordance. Are you struggling with fear? Look up peace, hope, and rest. There are also online tools where you can easily search the bible for topics. Again, be careful that you’re not just looking at commentaries, but really try to make an effort to pour through unadulterated scripture with a heart of prayer.

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. I will probably tell you to start with scripture, but I will always listen.