Wonderful Counselor
Most girls have a passion for dolls as a child. I had dolls that could wear a human diaper and actually make it wet. I had dolls with hair that you could brush (though I despised brushing my own hair). And I had these cute little twin dolls with matching outfits.
So as the oldest granddaughter on the one side of the family, I was elated to have numerous younger cousins to care for. Some were too close to my age, but I remember distinctly when my aunt and uncle had baby number 3 (of what became 8). I was a month shy of being 5. I remember sitting outside at my grandparents house in their heavy, metal, white outdoor chairs. They have arms on the side, so my parents sat me down to prepare to hold my newest cousin. I can still smell the newborn baby smell and remember his tiny body.
I’ve seen many cousins and kids of cousins since then. I’ve held many babies with joy and continued to hold them until they won’t let me hold them anymore. (Now I just make them all hug me) But let me tell you the best part of every one of those cousins I held. The feeling of being awestruck.
It’s a feeling you can’t describe. But there is this jolt in you that awestruck wonder.
I don’t think I had the word to describe that feeling until 2009. I remember pulling up a YouTube video on my parents’ computer as I play solitaire before school. It was of Kari Jobe’s newest song “Revelation Song.” The last verse starts with this line: “Filled with wonder, awestruck wonder…”
Awestruck. Wonder. Wonder comes from the Hebrew word pala.
Pala (verb) - to be marvelous, be wonderful, be surpassing, be extraordinary, separate by distinguishing action
I believe our view of what wonder truly is has been distorted by our society. We’ve forgotten what miracles God has performed because we’ve put our faith in science and technology. While these are avenues in which God uses for His will, we often forget about the miracles around us.
I remember the nights I prayed for Emily Whitehead. She was a family friend of a friend. As I followed her journey via Facebook for a few years, I prayed for her often. But one night, while I was in college, her parents were told she wasn’t going to make it. She had gotten a clinical trial treatment, but that night was the end.
I pulled an all-nighter for my class and every hour was just praying for healing. I prayed for the medicine to work. But it wasn’t the medicine that gave her another day…day after day. It was God. It was God that performed the miracle that Emily is in her senior year of high school now.
It wasn’t my faith or others’ faith in science. It was our faith is something bigger and better. It was our Wonderful God.
Isaiah follows Wonderful with Counselor. We see God giving counsel throughout the Old Testament. We see it in how He directs Noah. We see it in how He leads Moses and the Isreaelists. We see it in how He guides Jonah.
And what we see in God’s actions through these patriarchs of our faith is that He advises, He directs, and He provides wisdom. The issue is the people weren’t listening (and we still aren’t listening now).
The solution was simply to send a counselor in person - in flesh and bones - to speak those words to their faces. The solution was the Wonderful Counselor.
When we combine those words - wonderful and counselor - we combine miracles and wisdom. And those characteristics are the first Isaiah speaks of Jesus. I think that it is purposeful to start with those words. The other names Isaiah calls Jesus ARE just as important, but he was intentional to start with the simplest description of who Jesus is and why he is going to be sent.
See the people of the world then (just as we do now) needed a miracle. The destruction and sin was way too much to be handled by humans. It couldn’t be fixed by any imaginable solution. But God knew a miraculous way to save them.
And this sin and destruction needed a wake up call for how to move forward. They weren’t listening through prayer to God. They needed him to come face-to-face to them and speak the Truth right into their ears. Jesus didn’t come to start Christianity. He came to restore Judaism. He came to provide wisdom and clarity to the Truth.
And Jesus did just that. He provided wisdom to those who would listen. He clarified the law and restored its true meaning. And He provided the miracle it took to save the world from itself. He truly is our Wonderful Counselor.
Resources:
https://ourdailybread.org/resources/wonderful-counselor/
https://emilywhiteheadfoundation.org/our-journey/
https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/kjv/pala.html
