Taking Wisely the Counsel of the Years

IMPORTANCE is relative. The counsel of the years tells us that what we think is worth getting upset over now we will probably laugh about in a decade. Yet those things that might concern us a decade from now, as we look at them now, confuse us as to exactly how to handle them.

The counsel of the years speaks into our speaking — we say too many things that are false, ill-considered, unguarded, and panicked by comparison to the calm deliberation the years give us.

The counsel of the years gives us perspective regarding our hurts. Those betrayals we must bear, those where it is one person’s perspective versus another’s, are the betrayals that will betray our sensibilities for reason. But it takes a few years of contemplation to arrive at the fuller maturity of truth.

The counsel of the years provides reason to exercise grace whenever we can. We begin to see that everyone — in general terms — is trying their level best. The only ones who aren’t are those who aren’t trying at all. With people who are committed to their worldview they will rarely be convinced otherwise. And why would they. They ought to be commended for their commitment, even if we cannot agree with them.

The counsel of the years commends us to be kind to people and be harsher on ourselves. If we can take responsibility for what we should now, then we will have fewer regrets later, when we are left with what we are left with. Through the compassion of kindness we are eternally blessed, but through a short-sighted stinginess based in laziness we miss opportunities we never knew we missed.

The counsel of the years makes meaning for life when we might worry that we suffer in vain. Only through the counsel of years can see that God can rebuild anything, and that many rebuilds are classic innovations of divinity that not only resurrect but ascend, too. Suffering is so often the gateway to life we never thought would ever come again. Suffering can often produce something that was never ours beforehand. Suffering reinvents us, but only through the counsel of the years.

The counsel of the years places importance on those things that are hard but worthwhile instead of those things that provide pleasure but are fleeting. It is hard to eat for health, yet the reward is redeemed as the years unveil favour.

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Taking wisely the counsel of the years is the perspective later we wish we had now.

Taking wisely the counsel of the years banks on the appearance of truth at the right time.

Looking to the lives of others is one way we can learn to be our best selves.

Insight comes through the counsel of the years. Things as they come to be aren’t always as they seem now. Truth is a pariah until it comes. The truth makes fools out of us all.

We make all sorts of bullish decisions knowing full well we have no idea what we do not know.

Take wisely the counsel of the years.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.