THE MOST DANGEROUS VOICE IN YOUR LIFE

Why Being Your Own Counselor Will Destroy You

You are having a conversation right now that no one else can hear.

It started before your feet hit the floor this morning. It will continue after you close your eyes tonight. It runs underneath every meeting, every meal, every relationship, every decision you make. No, it’s not your parent, not your best friend, and not your pastor. You are talking to yourself. Constantly. Relentlessly. And the voice doing the talking is the one you trust more than any other voice on earth. For those who have a measure of self-awareness, this is far from a comforting thought.

It should terrify you.

Paul Tripp puts it with uncomfortable precision: “No one is more influential in your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do.”¹

Read that again. Let it sneak past the defensive guards you place around your heart and move past the surface. The most influential voice in your life is not your pastor’s. Not your spouse’s. Not your counselor’s. It’s yours. And here’s the perennial problem all must reckon with; you are not a reliable narrator. You never have been. The voice you trust the most is tethered to a heart that Scripture calls “deceitful above all things” (Jer. 17:9). You are, whether you realize it or not, in an unending conversation with the most unreliable counselor you will ever meet. Yes, these words are confrontational. In fact, right now, your inner counselor of self is telling you that somehow you are the exception to this. After all, you have gone to church your whole life, or at least a good portion of it. You know much about the Bible and can even recall a few memorized Bible verses. Stop. Just stop. Listen...not to yourself, listen to these words. Read them. Absorb them. Take them to heart.

Yourself.

This is an attempt to warn you about the danger of being your own worst counselor. Not the danger of thinking; God gave you a mind and expects you to use it. But the danger of thinking alone. The danger of treating your inner voice as your final authority. The danger of letting the voice between your ears replace the voice from the throne of heaven.

Because your heart does not just whisper to you. It preaches to you. And if you don’t learn to preach back, it will lead you to places you never intended to go.

THE VOICE YOU TRUST MOST IS THE VOICE YOU SHOULD TRUST LEAST

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:9–10 (ESV)

“Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.”

Proverbs 28:26 (ESV)

Let’s not soften this. God does not say your heart is occasionally misleading. He doesn’t say it’s somewhat unreliable. He says it is deceitful above all things. The Hebrew word is ‘aqob, the same root behind the name Jacob, the deceiver. Your heart doesn’t just make mistakes. It schemes. It spins. It rationalizes. And it does it all in a voice you recognize as your own, which is precisely what makes it so dangerous.

Think about that. If a stranger walked up and told you to abandon your convictions, you’d push back. If a coworker tried to convince you to compromise your integrity, you’d resist. But when the voice inside your own head tells you it’s fine, that it’s not that serious, that you deserve this, that God will understand... you listen. Why? Because you don’t recognize it as an enemy. You recognize it as you. It’s shocking to consider that perhaps the most dangerous enemy in your life is not dressed in a red suit with horns, does not look like your spouse, and isn’t presently locked up at the nearest jail or prison. The most dangerous enemy in your life very well may look exactly like you!

And that is the oldest trick in the Book.

C.S. Lewis understood this when he wrote in The Screwtape Letters that the demonic strategy is devastatingly simple: “The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves. Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills.”² The enemy’s strategy isn’t always as simple as trying to get you to listen to the devil. Often, it’s to make you listen to yourself.

Proverbs 28:26 couldn’t be more direct: whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool. Not might be. Not risks being. Is. Present tense. No exceptions. And yet most of us spend the majority of our waking hours doing exactly what this verse warns against: taking the counsel of our own hearts as though they were unquestionably trustworthy.

YOUR HEART KNOWS HOW TO LIE IN YOUR OWN VOICE

If Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that the heart is a liar, the rest of Scripture shows us exactly how it lies. What unfolds throughout Scripture is nothing shy of astonishing! Yes, we usually just skip over it, we run past it, we pull a typical slow and go as though we are driving through a familiar neighborhood that never presents reason to actually stop at the stop sign. We do so at our own peril. The Bible catalogs a pattern of first-person self-talk, moments where men and women “say in their hearts,” and the results are devastating nearly every single time.

Watch the pattern:

“I said in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure.’” (Eccl. 2:1)

Solomon is likely the author of the book of Ecclesiastes and in that book we see how he counseled himself toward hedonism. The wisest man alive reasoned himself into believing that pleasure could satisfy what only God could fill. He tested it thoroughly. His verdict? It’s worth noting that he determined that “All was vanity and a striving after wind.”

“Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’” (Deut. 8:17)

Moses warned a generation of people who hadn’t even arrived at success yet, because God knew what they would tell themselves once they got there. Self-counsel leans toward self-credit. It always has. You know the type I speak of. The person always walking around with a sore and strained shoulder due to the constant refrain of self-congratulations.

“You say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’” (Obad. 1:3)

Edom counseled itself into invincibility. It perched high in its rock fortresses and told itself no one could touch it. God’s response was swift: “Though you soar aloft like the eagle... I will bring you down.” Self-counsel breeds false security. It tells you the walls are higher than they are.

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Ps. 14:1)

Notice where atheism begins. Not in the academy. Not in the philosophy department. In the heart. A man talks himself into godlessness, not because the evidence demands it, but because his inner voice is more comfortable without accountability.

“And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” (Luke 12:19)

Jesus told this parable for a reason. The rich fool didn’t consult anyone. He had a conversation with his own soul, and his soul told him exactly what he wanted to hear. That night, God called in the debt. Be warned, his collections process is unrelenting when time is up.

Do you see it? In every case, the person’s internal voice confirmed what they already wanted to believe. That is not counsel. That is an echo chamber with a heartbeat.

EVEN BRILLIANT SELF-COUNSEL CANNOT SAVE YOU

If you think the solution is simply to be smarter about your self-talk, we find some helpful expressions in several of the works of classical literature that beg otherwise. There resides therein a warning for you.

In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan stands at the edge of Eden and conducts the most theologically informed inner monologue in literary history.³ He acknowledges God’s goodness. He admits his rebellion was unjust. He even asks himself whether repentance is possible. And then, in a move that mirrors every one of us who has ever known the right thing and talked ourselves out of doing it, he counsels himself that repentance would be futile. His pride would reassert itself. Why bother?

The result is the most chilling self-assessment ever written: “Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell.”

Satan became his own counselor, his own judge, and his own jailer. He did not lack intelligence in Milton’s account. He did not lack self-awareness. He lacked a voice outside of himself. And without one, even perfect self-knowledge produced only despair.

But here’s the one that should keep every churchgoer awake at night.

In John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, there is a character named Ignorance.⁴ He is not a villain. He is not hostile to Christianity. He is a sincere, morally earnest young man who walks the same road as Christian and Hopeful, the two hero-like characters of the book. He talks about God warmly. He is confident in his standing. And when asked the basis of his hope, his answer is devastatingly simple: “My heart tells me so.”

Christian responds by quoting Proverbs 28:26, “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool,” but Ignorance is unmoved. His heart validates his thoughts. His thoughts validate his heart. He has created a closed loop of self-counsel with no outside input.

In the final paragraph of the allegory, after Christian and Hopeful have entered the Celestial City, Bunyan turns back to Ignorance. He too approaches the gates of heaven. But he is bound and carried away. And Bunyan writes what may be the most devastating sentence in Christian literature: “Then I saw that there was a way to Hell, even from the Gates of Heaven.”

Ignorance was not far from God. He was walking the same road. He spoke the same language. And he ended up in hell because his only counselor was himself.

If that does not sober you, nothing will.

 

STOP LISTENING TO YOURSELF AND START TALKING TO YOURSELF

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” Psalm 42:5 (ESV)

Here is the turning point. Here is where everything shifts. Martyn Lloyd-Jones captured it better than anyone in his classic Spiritual Depression:

“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you... the first thing you have to do is to address yourself.” Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, 20–21

Did you catch the distinction?⁵ There is a world of difference between listening to yourself and talking to yourself. Listening is passive. It lets the deceitful heart run the show. Talking is active. It interrupts the inner monologue with truth.

David understood this. In Psalm 42, he is not having a calm devotional moment. He is falling apart. His enemies are taunting him. His soul is in turmoil. And what does he do? He does not listen to his despair. He grabs his own soul by the collar and commands it: “Hope in God!”

He does it again in Psalm 103: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!” David is not receiving a feeling. He is issuing an order. He is preaching to himself.

And then there is the moment in 1 Samuel 30:6 that every believer should memorize. David’s city has been burned. His family has been taken. His own men are talking about stoning him. He has lost everything. And the text says: “But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.”

Nobody preached to David that day. Nobody encouraged him. Nobody counseled him. But David did not listen to the voice of despair. He talked to himself, and the words he chose were not his own. They were God’s.

That is the difference between being counseled by your heart and being counseled by God’s Word.

THE COUNSELOR YOU ACTUALLY NEED

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6 (ESV)

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

Hebrews 3:12–13 (ESV)

Here is what it all comes down to. You were never designed to be your own counselor. You were designed to have one.

His name is Wonderful Counselor. And the word “wonderful” in Isaiah 9:6 doesn’t mean “nice.” The Hebrew pele means “beyond human comprehension.” Think “wonder-full” or full of wonder. His counsel is not merely better than yours. It operates on a plane your heart cannot reach on its own. It is counsel that originates outside of you, is untainted by your sin, and does not bend to your preferences.

That is exactly the kind of counsel your deceitful heart cannot provide.

And notice what Hebrews 3:12–13 adds: the antidote to self-deception is not just personal discipline. It is daily, mutual, communal truth-telling. “Exhort one another every day.” Why? Because the deceitfulness of sin will harden you, and you will not feel it happening. You need voices outside your own head. You need people who will love you enough to tell you what your heart will not.

Paul Tripp says it this way: “Confess that you don’t counsel yourself very well, and rest in the rescuing grace of the One who is called Wonderful Counselor.”⁶

That confession, that simple, humbling admission that you are not a trustworthy counselor of your own soul, is where freedom begins.

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SO WHAT DO YOU DO NOW?

First, stop trusting the verdict. 

The next time your inner voice delivers a confident assessment of your life, your marriage, your sin, your standing before God... stop. Interrogate it. Ask yourself: “Is this what God’s Word says, or is this what my heart wants me to believe?”

Second, start preaching to yourself.

 Every morning, before your heart has a chance to set the agenda, open Scripture and let God speak first. Do not begin the day listening to yourself. Begin it talking to yourself, with God’s words in your mouth.

Third, invite outside voices. 

Find a brother or sister who will speak truth into your life even when it stings. Hebrews 3:13 is not optional. It is a survival strategy for people with deceitful hearts, which is all of us.

Fourth, run to the Counselor. 

Not to your own reasoning. Not to your own feelings. Not to your own assessment of your own spiritual condition. Run to the One whose counsel is wonderful beyond comprehension, whose wisdom is untainted by sin, and who has never once told anyone what they merely wanted to hear.

John Owen, the great Puritan, issued this warning over three centuries ago: “Take heed thou speakest not peace to thyself before God speaks it.”7

Stop speaking peace to yourself. Let God speak it.

Because the most dangerous voice in your life is not the enemy’s. It’s yours. And the only way to silence it is to fill the room with a better Word, from a better Counselor, who has never led a single soul astray.

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Listen up guys, if you want to dig deeper on this topic and are interested in doing a little self-care, I have created a free tool you can download and take advantage of below. You can walk through this assessment in only a few minutes, and though imperfect, it will nevertheless give you a reasonable assessment of where you currently stand. ,

LISTENING OR TALKING - DIAGNOSTIC TOOL.pdf

Download PDF • 203KB

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NOTES

^1. Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), January 28 entry.

^2. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1942), Letter 4.

^3. John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV, lines 32–113 (1667).

^4. John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (London, 1678), Part I, final section.

^5. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 20–21.

^6. Tripp, New Morning Mercies, February 16 entry.

^7. John Owen, The Mortification of Sin (1656), Chapter 12.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress. London, 1678.

Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1942.

Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. London, 1667.

Owen, John. The Mortification of Sin. Oxford, 1656.

Tripp, Paul David. New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional. Wheaton: Crossway, 2014.