Prov. 18:13
What a shame, what folly, to give advice before listening to the facts!
It happens all the time. People are quick to give advice before they
know the facts. It takes time to discern
truth from fiction. One must listen
carefully and give careful thought to what he hears. One must be sure that what he hears is actually
what the truth is. We are not God and
mistakes are made, but we can avoid a lot of mistakes in the advice we give by
doing our homework first. There are
several reasons why we are not very good listeners.
We tend to think more highly of ourselves than
we ought. We think of ourselves as being
wise and able to readily share our wisdom with others. We often consider ourselves able to discern
truth from error without much investigation.
We often are very poor listeners, wanting to talk more than listen. We often are not really knowledge about the
subject at hand and do not want to admit it.
We sometimes consider ourselves too busy to take the time to listen to
the facts.
Whatever the reason, poor listeners give more
often than not poor advice. We lead
others astray and create problems for them and ultimately ourselves. It is foolish to give advice without knowing
what we are talking about. We lose our
respectability and the trust of others.
We become the problem instead of the problem solver.
Wise is he who is grounded in the Word of God so
that when advice is sought for he can speak from the context of the
Scriptures. Wise is he who is so in touch
with the Lord that he knows when to keep silent about things he is not able to
adequately give advice on. Wise is he
who understands that he does not know all things and is not too proud to admit
it. Wise is he who loves others enough
to not lead them astray with bad advice.
God gives us minds to use properly, to help one
another think and act Biblically about things.
Let us be careful when we give advice.
Let us be sure that we are grounded in the Word and know the facts
before we speak.
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