Wonderful Counsellor

For to 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 Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Isaiah 9:6

This wonderful prophecy given hundreds of years before the birth of Christ foretells the Son of God coming to earth to save his people.  The Jewish people were expecting a Messiah to come and save them but Isaiah makes plain that this person will be born as a baby.  He will not come down riding on clouds of glory to smite Israel’s’ enemies as portrayed in Psalm 18. He will come as a baby and this wonderful announcement is similar to those given in our newspapers today; a son has been born to – us.  How personal is that? This son is given to – us.

Yet if we doubt that as a baby he will be able to be Messiah then, as in the personal column of a newspaper, his names are given – each one an indication that this baby is actually God and therefore more than able to save his people.  The first name is in itself amazing because the word ‘wonderful’ used here can also be translated ‘beyond understanding’.  Indeed when Samson’s parents ask the angel that foretells Samson’s birth what his name is, he says it is ‘beyond understanding’ or ‘wonderful’ (Judges 13: 17 – 18). 

Jesus is a wonderful or beyond understanding counsellor.  He plans and purposes things that we may well not understand.  Indeed we probably will not understand them unless the wonderful Holy Spirit brings revelation and understanding to us.

I am constantly concerned about how small some people’s God is.  When they cannot understand something about God or his ways, they dismiss it.  Too often people do not have any expectation of God intervening in the affairs of man; God seems distant and disinterested. Some seem to feel that the ways of men will prevail – especially wicked men - over the ways of God.  God is called upon only when other options have failed and then often with no real sense of wondrous anticipation.

However if God really is God then we should not understand most of what he does but if we open our spirits, hearts and minds to him, he will help us grasp things beyond our understanding.  I am just so conscious of how stupid I can be yet I would far rather be that than feel I know what God is doing.  If God is my size, he is pretty small!

Thankfully, the one thing I can be assured of is that God’s ways are wonderful, beyond understanding, incredible, amazing, unbelievable, awesome and every other word that leaves our finite minds gasping in amazement and overwhelmed by God’s manifold wisdom.

Friends let us raise our eyes upwards and be amazed by this ‘Wonderful Counsellor’ and at the same time hold the thought that he loves us more than we will ever know, that he never condemns us especially when we do not understand but rather he takes our hand and leads us into all truth, one step at a time as we trust him. He will enlarge our hearts and minds to comprehend wonders we could never have grasped alone; wonders that truly are beyond understanding.