Among my responsibilities as an elder/pastor within a local church is meeting with people to offer counsel and guidance. I have never lost the wonder of being given so sobering a privilege—to listen to people as they share their deep sorrows or ask their big questions and to then attempt to bring the Word of God to bear in wisdom, comfort, and direction.
I recently spent some time pondering the situations that seem to arise on a regular basis. While some circumstances are entirely unique, many more have a number of similarities between them. And as I pondered these, I realized that the most common counsel I offer is this: Stop thinking in terms of “should” and “ought” and start thinking in terms of “wise” and “want.”
When Christians meet trials and difficulties or when they come to hard decisions or forks in the road, they naturally want to know “How do I please God in this situation?” This is a wonderful instinct and a very good question to ask. Christians should always be concerned to do what God commands and to avoid what God forbids. I love to hear, “I want to honor God in my decision. I want to bring glory to him in my situation.”
Yet in most of life, God does not give us clear commands. A parent may tell his child, “go and play in the yard.” The parent doesn’t care what game the child plays, as long as he stays inside the fence. And kind of like that, God sets the moral boundaries and then gives us great freedom within them. We like to ask “should” questions: Should I join this church or that one? Should I go to this college or that one? Should I pursue this potential spouse or that one? Should I have this number of children or that number? We use the word “should” very naturally when we ask such questions, yet that word can trip us up because it implies that there is some level of moral rightness and wrongness in our situation, that there is one way that will please God and other that will displease him—one way that will gain his blessing and another that will lead to some kind of negative consequence. We then look for clear guidance from God and hesitate when we fail to receive it.
Something I often say is “What if God doesn’t really care?” I am deliberately overstating the matter and need to explain myself, of course. But what I mean to convey is that God may not be too concerned about which decision you make—not concerned enough, that is, to reveal it to you. After all, God is our Father and a father supports his children. If a dad tells his child to go out in the yard and play, he doesn’t want his child to plead to tell him whether to play tag, hide-and-seek, or catch. He just wants his child to play—to play whatever game delights his heart in that moment.
God wants us to live. He wants us to make our own decisions.Share
And like that, God wants us to live. He wants us to make our own decisions. He provides the boundaries of his will in those matters the Bible makes clear, but then leaves it to us to operate according to wisdom and desire. He leaves it to us to evaluate the wisest course of action and then to consider our desires—wisdom and desires that have been shaped by the Word and molded by the Spirit.
And so my most common pastoral counsel is designed to help people stop thinking they need to make their decisions on the basis of what they should do or ought to do but to instead make decisions on the basis of what’s wise and what they want. Observing that they have inadvertently made the moral will of God much more expansive than it actually is, I help them see how they are already within the boundaries of what God has revealed and that he is now pleased to give them freedom—freedom to choose many different paths and be sure of his blessing no matter which one they take. In other words, they need to stop thinking in terms of “should” and “ought” and start thinking in terms of “wise” and “want.”

Today’s post is sponsored by BJU Seminary and written by Brian Hand, professor of New Testament interpretation. BJU Seminary equips Christian leaders through an educational and ministry experience that is biblically shaped, theologically rich, historically significant, and evangelistically robust.
Melancholia—on a spectrum from simple sadness to profound discouragement, then crossing a moral line into despair—marks nearly every life at some point. Sorrow even appears throughout Scripture, and the biblical evidence seems to run the gamut of mild sorrow (the rich young rule in Matthew 22, whose sorrow was induced by personal sin) through severe despondency (Job and David among others, whose sorrow was induced by circumstance, sickness, or Satan) to depression with despair (Judas), and it does so without ever using modern, scientific designations. 
A biblical-theological examination of melancholy should help us nuance our understanding of human sadness, and it shows us that melancholy is an emotional reflection of a fallen world. Upon such examination, which is detailed in my article in BJU Seminary’s Journal of Biblical Theology & Worldview, I find three avenues of application useful for sufferers and counselors alike. 
First, the Church should strive to exercise great tenderness in handling cases of melancholy, understanding that distress is not always connected with specific personal sins. 
Second, Scripture addresses the full range of melancholic emotions by depicting them as part of normal human experience under the curse. They reveal what we value, love, and believe, how badly we hurt, how dark this world really is, and, therefore, how desperate and vital our faith really is.
Third, while melancholy often “tells the truth” about the Fall, it does not tell “the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” It is a genuine mirror of reality, but it is also a defective mirror because it shows only part of the picture. It does no good to contradict the melancholic, “It’s not that bad,” while he correctly and accurately replies in his heart, “Oh, yes, it is!” It also does no good to transfix oneself in the misery of one truth while neglecting the hope of other truths. The mirror of our emotions may be both correct and incorrect in different ways simultaneously.
Affirming with the sufferer that life is as dark as he feels it to be, this world is as corrupt as he feels it to be, and the body, mind, and emotions are indeed crumbling can exhibit much needed sympathy. This is not the only truth or all the truth, but it is the truth. It can be constructive, then, to recognize the full depth and righteousness of sadness while guiding the severely discouraged person to reaffirm “the whole truth.” Recognizing that melancholy mirrors the Fall gives the biblical counselor the opportunity to affirm the decay that has touched everything in this world while insisting that the sufferer also see and confess the restoration that Christ has begun and will continue to eternity. We must not minimize the former in the rush to the latter, or we will seem disingenuous to the sufferer.
As counselors, we can help the sufferer remember that the people of God rest on him and voice a reliance on him even when they cannot see or feel him. Often, pain remains. There is no guarantee that God will deliver us from sadness of heart this side of the Fall any more than he guarantees deliverance from disease and death. But though the pain remains, it can become like the pain of childbirth—giving rise to something of value, purposeful, God-designed—for that is his plan in all our suffering (Jas 1:12).
For the people of God, the Fall will come to an end, swept away in a majestic display of divine power, wisdom, and compassion involving the redemption and glorification of our bodies, the creation of the new heavens and new earth, and the end of sorrow forever. Melancholy, the eminent emotional mirror of the Fall, will be forever shattered. We will never again know loss, for God will be with us.
To learn more about helping believers with melancholy, consider joining BJU Seminary January 29–31 for its CoRE Conference on “The Return of Hope: Dealing with Depression in the Church.” Save with the early bird discount until December 15!

Speaking broadly, there are two approaches to daily Bible reading: reading for intimacy or reading for familiarity. Intimacy with the Bible comes by slow, meditative reading that focuses on small portions—deep study of books, chapters, and verses. Familiarity with the Bible comes through faster reading of larger portions—the entire sweep of the biblical narrative. Both are perfectly good approaches to the Bible and Christians thrive on a healthy mixture of the two. There is great benefit in knowing the Bible as a whole (familiarity) and in knowing the most important parts in detail (intimacy). (On this note, see my article “Intimacy or Familiarity.”)
My favorite daily Bible-reading plan is the Five Day Bible Reading Program. I have successfully used it for many years and intend to use it again in 2024. I gladly commend it to you.
It has several features I especially appreciate:

It is a familiarity plan that covers the entire text of the Bible over the course of the year. Those who follow it will read every word of the Bible in the year ahead.
It is a pseudo-chronological plan that covers the text of the Bible in the order the events happened (except Job which comes at the end). Thus, for example, the Psalms come at appropriate moments in the life of David, the books of Kings and Chronicles are read in harmony, and so on. This helps set the events in their historical context. Yet even though it’s chronological, it’s only pseudo-chronological. There are Old Testament and New Testament readings each day and the gospels are interspersed through the year. I find this an ideal compromise over a strictly chronological program in which you read the entire OT before touching the NT.
It is a 5-day plan. A benefit of a 5-day plan (as opposed to a 7-day plan) is that there is less chance of falling far behind. At 5 days per week, it is far more doable than at 7 days—there is always a chance to catch up. Also, it allows a day or two of reading something different for those who, for example, like to read and ponder the sermon text on a Sunday morning or for those who don’t do personal devotions on Sunday. I have followed it for years, have sometimes fallen behind, but have always managed to catch up and finish on schedule.
It is a free plan. It’s free for the taking! They’ve got a nice little print-out you can download, print, fold in half, and put inside your Bible. It’s got boxes to tick as you complete each day and each week. Or you can use the ReadingPlan app to organize the plan even while reading through Logos, the ESV app, or a printed Bible. Though it is free, they have launched a Patreon account for those who would like early access, access to more features, or who would just like to offer a bit of support.
(Note: Though it comes with an optional “Reader’s Companion,” I do not necessarily recommend that component as the theology does not quite line up with my own.)

The Five Day Bible Reading Program is a free download. Just scroll to the bottom of that page to find the download links. I echo their hope for the program: “God’s blessings rest with those who will read, understand, and live by His Word. May this guide help you to that noble end. ‘Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path’ (Psalms 119:105).”
(Parenthetical Note: If you prefer an “intimacy” plan, I recommend the Reading the Bible with John Stott guides and/or the God’s Word for You series. Both are excellent.)