Counseling
311
until your own heart has been humbled and refined and made tender
by the grace of Christ. When this change has been wrought in you, it
will be as natural for you to live to bless others as it is for the rosebush
to yield its fragrant bloom or the vine its purple clusters.—
Thoughts
from the Mount of Blessing, 127, 128
(1896).
The Training and Experience Which Prepared Moses as a
Compassionate Counselor—Man would have dispensed with that
long period of toil and obscurity, deeming it a great loss of time. But
Infinite Wisdom called him who was to become the leader of his
people to spend forty years in the humble work of a shepherd. The
habits of caretaking, of self-forgetfulness and tender solicitude for his
flock, thus developed would prepare him to become the compassionate,
long-suffering shepherd of Israel. No advantage that human training
or culture could bestow could be a substitute for this experience.—
Patriarchs and Prophets, 247, 248
(1890).
Some Not Fitted to Deal With Minds (counsel to a minister)—
You have some traits of character that unfit you to deal wisely with
human minds. You do not work in a way that will produce the best
results.—Lt 205, 1904.
[769]
To deal with minds is the nicest work in which men ever engaged.
All are not fitted to correct the erring. They have not wisdom to deal
justly, while loving mercy. They are not inclined to see the necessity of
mingling love and tender compassion with faithful reproofs. Some are
ever needlessly severe and do not feel the necessity of the injunction
of the apostle: “And of some have compassion, making a difference:
and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire” (
Jude 1:22,
23
).—
Testimonies for the Church 3:269, 270
(1873).
Human Intellect Not Omnipotent—A clear conception of what
God is and what He requires us to be will give us humble views of self.
He who studies aright the Sacred Word will learn that human intellect
is not omnipotent; that without the help which none but God can
give, human strength and wisdom are but weakness and ignorance.—
Testimonies for the Church 5:24
(1882).
Manifesting the Grace of Christ—God would have every indi-
vidual look less to the finite, depend less upon men. We have coun-
selors who make manifest that they have not a knowledge of the grace
of Christ and do not understand the truth as it is in Christ.