How God advises us through the mouths of other people.
We need to listen to personal advice
when making important decisions.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Importantly, please read the introductory article, “God’s guidance” to this subsection of the website, “God’s guiding hand” before going on. That is if you have not done so already. It briefly describes the various methods of God’s guidance, available to us. And it discusses how they can assist us during life. That is if we decide to use them.
(To read about the ‘who’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of this website please click here.)
Now, God normally allows us to make our own decisions in life. He may try to hint which way we should go, but he normally lets us make final decisions. A number of articles in this subsection expand on his various methods of guidance. Yes, guidance we should follow by the way.
I maintain, based on my decades of evaluation, that these events are evidence of his loving care towards us.
This article relates to how God attempts to guide us, with advice, through the mouths of other people. First and foremost we are expected by God to seriously listen to other people’s advice, particularly when we suspect it is ‘wise counsel’.
Note this relevant quote, from the Old Testament:
The way of the fool seems right to him,
but a wise man listens to advice.
[Proverbs 12:15]
2. HOW IT WORKS
Certainly from my long term experience with, and evaluation of, ‘wise counsel’ it certainly seems to arrive whether we ask for it or not. I really don’t know the exact mechanism God uses. Maybe, he empowers such people with the courage to advise us in a way that they normally would not. In any case, at this stage in my life, I particularly take note when advice on an important issue related to my path in life, or faith, comes unexpectedly from someone I know.
When it happens to you, there may well be recognition: “Gee, I wasn’t expecting her/him to advise me about that?” I can say again from experience, there is a kind of ‘bong!’ in our mind. That is a note to it … that is intended to unsettle us a bit. To create a ‘gut reaction’! In other words, it indicates that all may not have been well with our previous decision making.
After years of analysis, I almost certainly know when to ‘take heed’ of personal advice on life issues when I do receive it.
3. LEARNING HOW TO REACT
Like me, I am sure you already know that a bad experience in life, due to a poor decision we made, can be a ‘cruel teacher’. So it is in our best interests to be open to sound advice in this regard. And of course, act appropriately to it! And yes, I raised the question of why God does let us make errors of judgement in the previous article, “God’s leadings” under Heading 5.
Now obviously not all advice received from friends and family etc will be sound, so we do need to use some ‘discretion’ here. But if advice offered to us, in this way, gives sensible alternatives to our own thoughts on something important in life – faith journey, our family, personal relationships, education, job, career, helping others, buying essential assets etc. – then it pays for us to think about it seriously. And not surprisingly, I guess, we would most likely think about advice received from people we respect, especially Christian friends, family members or even our older friends.
Again, related to other articles in this subsection, I learnt the hard way not to quickly ‘write off’ advice like that. I got my first lesson on the danger of ignoring advice thirty plus years ago, and the words echoed in my head for a long time afterwards … in view of the ‘prophetic’ message I had ignored. There were seriously bad results unfortunately.
As you can tell from my admissions, through these articles about God’s guidance – on ignoring all forms of guidance from God over the years and learning the hard way many times over – I do have an ‘impulsive edge’ that I definitely regret. I was clearly a slow learner in that area of my personality. I sincerely hope you, the reader, can learn from my mistakes of the past.
4. CONCLUSION
It is clear to me that we all should pay particular attention to advice we receive from other people. It is of particular importance when it applies to far-reaching decisions that we are in the process of making. We must ask ourselves has God set-up the advice, due to the likely bad results awaiting us. As such, the Lord can intend them to be a real ‘wake-up call’.
Continue onto the article, “Listening to God”. Yes absolutely, he can at times even offer personal advice directly to us (in our minds).