Advice from the Wrong Place - Martin Wiles

They ask a piece of wood for advice! They think a stick can tell them the future! Hosea 4:12 NLT

Advice is prevalent; where I get it from is essential. I was working for a very difficult boss. She was manipulative, moody, deceptive, and could be downright mean. Soon after beginning this job, I wondered if I’d made the right decision. I didn’t ask advice from anyone about what I should do. Had I, I might have heard, “Tell her to take the job and shove it.” Or, “You have a family to take care of. 

Sometimes we have to do what we don’t particularly enjoy.” In the final analysis, I took the advice God gave me through prayer and stayed put for five years. 

Hosea prophesied to hard headed people who were faithless, unkind, sexually immoral, criminal, violent, alcoholic, and buck passers. The saddest thing was that when they needed advice they asked their wooden idols. God they disregarded.  

Advice is plentiful. Good advice is scarce. I can go to a bookstore and find advice everywhere on any question I have. Or I can pick up my smart phone, computer, or IPad and ask Google. I could also go to the nearest bar where the bartender would be more than happy to offer his opinion or to the local barbershop where I could get the same. 

Many of the places I could seek advice from would be no better than the piece of wood Hosea’s audience consulted. If it’s a book I consult, it should offer sound Christian doctrine or at the very least be based on biblical principles. If it’s a website, I should read the About section. And if it’s a person I consult, they should be a mature Christian with life experiences and knowledge. 

But the best advice doesn’t come from wood sources but by praying and searching God’s Word. Others may lead me astray—inadvertently or on purpose, but God never will. What he says in his Word—or through other godly sources, can always be trusted.

Don’t get your advice from wood sources. Go to God. 

Prayer: Father, we thank You that the advice You give will always be just what we need. 

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